Dec. 17, 2024 Special Meeting of Mountain View City Council

Video

Transcript

[00:03:44] Mayor Pat Showalter: Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call this study session to order. Welcome to the last city council meeting of 2024 or the Mountain View City Council. We have a lot of work this evening. So we're gonna start with a study session, and first, we'll have a roll call.

[00:04:06] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Abbe Koga?

[00:04:07] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here

[00:04:07] City Clerk Heather Glaser: comes for Hicks.

[00:04:09] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here.

[00:04:09] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Kamei,

[00:04:10] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: here.

[00:04:11] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Ramirez.

[00:04:12] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[00:04:12] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Ramos.

[00:04:13] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Here,

[00:04:13] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Metachek.

[00:04:15] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here.

[00:04:15] Unknown Speaker: Here,

[00:04:15] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Schwalter.

[00:04:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Here.

[00:04:16] City Clerk Heather Glaser: You have a corn?

[00:04:17] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Okay, so now we are on to item three, the study session. 3.1 is the tenant relocation assistance ordinance review. It's part of housing element program, 3.2. Spanish translation services are available for this item, and we will now hear from our interpreter. Well, perhaps I'll just read a little bit more, and I'll go back to our interpreter. So the purpose of this study session is to receive city council input on options to increase the efficacy of the tenant relocation assistance ordinance, commonly called the Trao, and meeting anti displacement goals as part of program 3.2 in the city's 2023 31 housing element. And we have housing director, Wayne Chen, and Rent Stabilization Manager, Anke Van Dierson, who are here to present the item. If you would like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. I understand that the translator is available now. So, um, could you please make the translation announcement in Spanish?

[00:05:54] Unknown Speaker: Interpretación en zoom y selecione el idioma a de cuado para escuchar la reignón en esse idioma. Muchas gracias.

[00:06:03] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you so much. Okay, with that, we'll move to the staff presentation.

[00:06:10] Unknown Speaker: Good evening, thank you, mayor and counsel, appreciate the time. I do also want to note that I'm guaranteedeman, legal counsel to the rental housing committee is also available by Zoom, should any technical questions arise, and I also want to recognize Andre Kennedy, senior management analyst with the rent civilization division, who, for all her hard work, in helping to assist with this item. So as you mentioned, this is regarding the review of the trio, the tenant relocation assistance ordinance, as related to housing program, 3.2. And here's what the housing element says. There's a couple parts. One is to implement the state SB330 provisions related to tenon protections as well as the city's trail program, and to evaluate the efficacy of trail and meeting anti-displacement goals, such as being able to see a mountain view. There's a deadline for completing the study, which is December the 31st, so just in a couple of weeks. Quickly, process today, staff have conducted review over the last several months and looking at comparable jurisdictions, we've held stakeholder and community meetings in the summer, 2 for attendants, one in person, one via Zoom, as well as a meeting with landlords and property developers. And then we also held a study session with a rental housing committee as well on November the 14th, since the interaction of the Trao and the community stabilization Fair Rent Act as part of both programs. Briefly, the history of the trail on purpose. The trail was established in 2010. And since that time, there have been four amendments undertaken, and those amendments have been related to expanding the eligible tenants who could apply for benefits as well as increasing the amount of the benefits as a way to increase trio efficacy. Here is language from the chapter 36 of the city code that identifies the purpose of the trail, which is a mitigation measure, to address those who are impacted from displacement, moderate, very low income tenants, and it covers situations related to the demolition and redevelopment of existing housing units, remodeling or renovating properties as well. And we also implement SB 330. That bill went into effect in 2020 and it has a sunset date of 2030. SB330 covers a wide variety of items, but it also has tenant protection provisions, and it includes relocation benefits. The situations that are covered by it are specifically related to protected units that are demolished and redevelopment, so under the category of protected units. And in the case of Mountain View, that's primarily the units covered under our apartment rent civilization ordinance. To set the stage, a comparison of key provisions of Trao SB330, Trao covers a greater number of folks who could apply, SB330 has a lower eligibility limit. The relocation assistance amounts. There's one formula for Trao, 2 for SB 330. We anticipate that in many, if not most situations, the formulas under SB 330 will get a larger and perhaps even substantially larger benefit amount than the trail. Trail has provisions for additional payments, if your special circumstance household, SV 330 does not. And Trail has a certain type of 1st write of return, which is different than the SB 330 type of 1st write of return. The trail 1st right of return is related to apartments where they're taken off the market, and the same units are returned to the market and re rented, and the former tenants up to a certain time limit have 1st right return to those original units. SP330 is related to when original units are demolished, new units are built in its place, and the tenants have first rate returned to those newly developed units. and affordable levels. Here's a summary of how we look at the income groups as related to Trao, SP 330, and who they effectively cover. So the group one, which is the low income category, both Trey on SP330 cover this group. In most cases, we think SP330 will have greater benefits, so SP330 prevails, but whichever is greater, that's what will be applied. Group 2, the middle income category, only Trao covers it, because that exceeds the SB 330 limits. And beyond that middle income, 120% AMI plus 5,000. There's currently no coverage under a city program or state program. that provides coverage for those higher income folks. In terms of evaluating efficacy of trail, we looked at 4 things, the outcomes of display's tenants, administrative challenges that we've experienced comparable jurisdictions and stakeholder input. Regarding the outcomes of displaced tenants. First, over the past decade, over a 1000 units have been subject to Trao, and about over 550 households, or about 64% of folks living in those units have received relocation benefits. We think that most of the households who did not apply for benefits probably made a self-determination that they did not qualify due to the income limits. We have a more limited data set, but it shows where folks moved to. So 43% of display tenants moved within Mountain View, 41% outside of Mountain View, but within the Bay Area, some moved out of the Bay Area, and some moved out of the state. Shifting gears to administrative challenges, there are 3 that the team has really identified. The 1st one is regarding the timing of some of these formal requirements, the timing of this notice of intent. The early, the current early requirements may pose some challenges for developers, but it could also cause tenants to move earlier than they need to. Additionally, the trail does not include a type of vacate date that SB 330 has and what we'll share a little bit more right here on this slide. So in an illustrative example, a developer submits a development application to the city. The trail currently requires that within 30 days. A notice of intent, this formal notice is sent to tenants by the developers. And this formal notice triggers when developers need to also provide funds to pay for relocation assistance. So it's quite early in the process. Steps 2 and 3 are related to notices of termination. Those are also formal notices that are required. 2 provides a greater lead time for households who are special circumstance, and step 3 is another termination notice, but for non-special circumstance households. The trio says that the vacate date is anytime after project approval. So in this example, uh, we we use that, in a lot of example, a vacate date soon after the, um, B, the project approval, and the dates for 2 and 3 kind of tie to number four. Um, right now, we are seeing uh, uh, continued economic challenges for residential development, and although a developer may have uh, estimated project timeline that could be delayed or shifted due to economic challenges, financing challenges, et cetera. In that case, tenants might move out earlier than they need to, especially if the construction date shifts out. The star on the screen shows the SB330 date, which ties the vacate date to the construction date as opposed to the Trao date being tied to the project approval date. And so in this illustrial example in the red box, it shows that the difference between when the tenants might move out, which is earlier than when SB 330 would require them to be moved out. We'll talk further in a moment, but the 2nd challenge that was identified is that there's no provision under trail currently that specifically covers situations of temporary displacement, especially when there are renovations involved. So while trail does say it covers situations where tenants are displaced due to remodeling, it only provides 2 things, a displacement that lasts for less than 30 days and a displacement that lasts for longer than 30 days. We have seen situations where rehab and renovations can just take longer than 30 days, but they would be subject to permanent costs, which may make renovations, and we have infeasible. And we saw that with a 660 Mariposa project where we had to go through a trail alternative mitigation request, and that took quite a while to do. The 3rd challenge that was identified is that under the trail, there's an exemption clause that exempts situations where the city, red tags, an unpermitted or an uninhabitable structure, and when that occurs, the landlords are exempt from pain benefits. So that could cause an unintended consequence where buildings are allowed to fall into disrepair, but benefits are not paid. We conducted a review of comparison jurisdictions and focused on 4 key areas related to the challenges and to the recommendations we'll be making. The 1st is income eligibility. So under the trail, as mentioned, there is an eligibility threshold of 120% AMI +5000 for a little bit of boost. But in other jurisdictions, there are benefits provided for folks across the incomes, usually that's tiered, perhaps moving costs for everyone, and then as you go lower in income, more benefits are provided. Regarding noticing requirements. Again, trail provides this early NOI requirement, but others jurisdictions have a later NOI, which triggers payments to be available at a later time. Um, for temporary displacement. Again, we currently have no specific provision for that. Whereas other cities do have a specific provision for temporary displacement. 60 days, potentially 90 days. And again, we have exemption for city enforcement situations, but other cities don't have that. Regarding stakeholder input, there was a shared comment that getting the benefits to balance protecting tenants, but maintaining product feasibility was important. So I instead focus on, um, ways of, um, having Trey will be effective in allowing tenants to stay in Mountainbee of their displays. They also share two perspectives about income eligibility. One is that everyone should receive some type of benefit, regardless of the income. The other perspective was, um, um, Everyone should receive the same level of benefit regardless of the income. And then we also receive comments of that, SP330 does help, but maybe not enough. It does have its type of first rate return, the relocation benefits may be higher, but it may still not sufficiently cover the impacts of permanent displacement. The landlord and developer stakeholders focused on development feasibility, if they were to be redeveloped. Small landlords also felt that the, um, the program requirements might make, um, there's a disincentive for owning rental property as well as to undertake renovations to maintain the properties. And when taken together with all the requirements, all together, it can make a project unfeasible. Staff has 5 recommendations to improve trail efficacy. And this is really focused around increasing the clarity for both tenants and developers and landlords, and helping to main additional stability for tenants. The 1st one is adding the SP330 vacate date to the trail, as discussed in the illustrative development example. The 2nd is to evaluate alternatives to have a later notice of intent requirement, even if that were to be the case, staff would recommend having an informal notification process, because a tenant might still find out about a project anyway. So, number two, would include looking at informal noticing, probably by the city, to let tenants know that there is a project, but the formal NLI, we would be evaluating alternatives to that. And then creating this new section in the trail to address temporary displacement, particularly for renovations and rehab. The 4th recommendation is to modify the trail, so the exemption regarding the city's actions of red tagging units would be removed. And then the 5th is to, um, add the SB 330 type of 1st rave return to city requirements. We are already looking at this through the local replacement requirements work, but because these two interact with the trail and the local replacement requirements, we would be evaluating where to put that language. The rental housing committee supported all of these recommendations. And so the question, the 1st question for counsel is, do you support these 5 recommendations or have other feedback or recommendations for us to incorporate? There's an additional consideration to those 5 and it's related to potentially increasing the benefit amount or the groups who are eligible for the benefits. And this could be evaluated through the three groups, the low income, the middle income, and the high income groups. And if council directs us to study one or more groups, we would want to look at any potential economic and legal constraints, if trio benefits were to be expanded. Um, RC supported um, 2 parts of this. One is to evaluate options for increasing trail benefits, but to the group most in need, which is group one. Um, and the 2nd piece was the value of moving costs for all three groups. Groups one, two, and three. Some additional considerations around that is to the extent that group one and group 2 have different levels of benefits in the future if there's a way to kind of smooth out that transition from group one and group 2 level benefits. And for moving costs is to take a look at more local costs that might reflect more of the local conditions for moving costs, as opposed to, for example, some state or national standards. The 2nd question, the 2nd and final question for counsel is, do you agree with evaluating options for group one? Um, and do you agree with the battery moving costs for all 3 groups? So based on your direction, staff will work on draft ordinance amendments. We will need probably a little bit of time to work on that, and we would be identifying a time to bring this back next year through a public hearing process, which would include APC and city council, since this is part of chapter 36. With that, that concludes staff's presentation. Thank you.

[00:22:04] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay, because this is a study session. We start with public input, and I'm wondering if there's anyone in the audience who would like to address us on this matter. Has anybody okay? Please come forward and state your name. And if you are on Zoom, and you would like to make a comment, then please raise your hand. Thank you. Welcome.

[00:22:31] Emanuel Salazar: Hey, uh, good evening, Mayor Schwalter and Mountain View council members. Thank you for your continued leadership and focus on solutions at Cape Mountain View's Communities Hall. So, uh, the work to strengthen the Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance, or Trao, is thoughtful and necessary, and status recommendations effectively address key vulnerabilities that tenants face during times of disruption. Let me start by saying, because I'm realizing I just jumped right into it. My name is Emanuel Salazar. I am here on behalf of SV at home. We're an affordable housing policy and FXC organization, and well, we strongly support incorporating the SP 330 vacate date into Trao, providing tenants with a clear, consistent timeline, allowing them to remain in their homes until 6 months before construction, not only reduces unnecessary fear of, and ensures informed decision making, but it also allows for, you know, tenants not leaving soon around the need to. A lot of the time, tennis just are unaware of the fact that they can remain for a prolonged period of time. So they end up leaving before they have to, and we're trying to make sure that people are housed as long as it's possible. We also commend the recommendation to address temporary displacement due to rehabilitation or repairs. Temporary locations, uh, when not managed carefully, frequently lead to permanent displacements as residents struggle to navigate unclear processes or lack of resources to return, establishing clear guidelines and appropriate, um, assistances for these situations is critical to preventing this outcome and ensuring that renovations efforts do not inevertently harm the very tendents that they aim to support. Finally, we appreciate the ongoing effort to refine the Trao in ways that balance tenant protections, the development feasibility, and addressing unintended loopholes, such as those involving habitability enforcement actions in another importance is another important step in safeguarding residence and maintaining trust in the process. So we look forward to seeing these thoughtful changes move forward and appreciate the council's commitment to policies that promote housing stability, provide displacement, and protect the people who make mound view a vibrant inclusive community. So thank you for your time and leadership on this critical issue. Thank you very much.

[00:24:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Manuel, did you have a chance to fill out a blue card? The reason we like you to do that is 'cause that way we get your name spelled properly on the in the minutes. So we appreciate you doing that. Okay, now we have a virtual caller, who's number ends in eight, seven, two. Go ahead.

[00:25:09] Chris: Yeah, hi. Can you hear me?

[00:25:10] Mayor Pat Showalter: We can. Thank you.

[00:25:12] Chris: Yeah, hi. How is everyone? Yeah, I'm a senior living in Mountain View. I live in one of the mobile home parks, and I feel, unfortunately, like, I'm an expert on this, because I've actually been involuntarily displaced from my home two times in the last 25 years due to development. So I think it's really important that counsel get this right, when I was displaced, there was no assistance at all. And I think it's really important to realize that when people lose their homes, It's very traumatic. And since I have limited time here, I just want to convey that Berkeley, with measure BB, it just passed this here with overwhelming support. It is so much more, it is so much better than what staff is proposing here and what Mountain View is proposing. And I really encourage staff to look at, look at what Berkeley did with measure BB in respect to providing protections for people that are being displaced. Specifically, Berkeley does not means test their assistance. Everyone who is displaced from their home, everyone gets a minimum of $18,533 in relocation assistance. And if you're disabled or if you're a senior, or if you're low income, you get an additional $6,177 in relocation assistance. In addition, landlords have to pay all the administrative fees to cover the cost of administering the ordinance. They must give a 120 day notice of intent to remove units from the market. And if you're a senior or a disabled person, you need one year notice. So since time is running out here, everyone can go look at the Berkeley ordinance, uh, it's very thorough, it does not means test. Everyone gets benefits, and just realized that losing your home is traumatic. And Mountain View has an opportunity here to step up, do the right thing and protect tenants with a program that helps everyone. Thank you so much, really appreciate it.

[00:28:02] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, and could you share your name with us?

[00:28:06] Chris: Yeah, I'm Chris. I live in Sahara Village.

[00:28:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Chris. Okay, our next speaker is Anna Marie Morales. Anna Marie, are you there?

[00:28:18] Anna Marie Morales: Excuse me, I have a little bit of a cult. Hi, how is everyone? Can you hear me okay?

[00:28:24] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, we can.

[00:28:25] Anna Marie Morales: Oh, great. Thank you all very much for bringing this up. Um, it is really appreciated. It's really needed, um, very timely. Um, I really like to echo with the previous speaker, Chris said. Um, it's really important. My mom... she's disabled. She's also a senior. She, um, recently, a couple months ago got, um, home from a skilled nursing facility, um, you know, she was in and out of the hospital since COVID. It really impacted her. I was in a serious car accident, like, a month before COVID and the lockdown. I'm disabled, like, people want to stay in their homes. There should be no means testing as well. Everyone deserves the help. It's a traumatic situation for everyone. If someone feels they don't need it, they could always, you know, decline. But I really appreciate you looking into this, and I really hope you look at what Berkeley is doing. Thank you so much for your time. Have good night.

[00:29:29] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Anna Marie. Okay. Seeing no more speakers, I'll bring it back to the council for questions and deliberation. Um, I have a question to start with, and then other people can, I don't see any names yet. I'm sure we'll have a bunch of them. First of all, how do you really know what is 6 months before construction starts?

[00:29:57] Unknown Speaker: Typically, the developer will have an estimated project construction timeline, and then if it shifts, and as it is now, we would work with the developer, stay in contact, and as they're envisioning changes in the project timeline, then that would be communicated to the city. But it all begins with a project estimate and it may change.

[00:30:18] Mayor Pat Showalter: So that makes sense. So it is variable. It's just, you start with a specific date, and as the circumstances change, you inform people, and they get to stay a little longer. That's really what it amounts to. Okay, that seems reasonable. Thank you. Next is Vice Mayor Lisa Manachek.

[00:30:38] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. A couple questions. Um, I could have sworn I read this somewhere, but now I can't find it. Do we know what other jurisdictions do in terms of moving costs?

[00:30:50] Unknown Speaker: Yes, so I believe Appendix 3 has some information. Let me just turn to it to see if it breaks out moving costs. But we believe most of the jurisdictions in Attachment 3 do have moving costs provided. If directed to evaluate, we would go into and just do more research in terms of how they calculate and what the fee levels are.

[00:31:14] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Yeah, I didn't see it broken out. I was wondering if it was couched in any of these, but maybe not. Okay. Um, and then, um, we talked about this when I met with you all about the vacate date. So I just want to be clear if we add the SB 330 date. An applicant no longer has the option of choosing their own vacate date. Is that true? They have to follow the SB 330 date.

[00:31:43] Unknown Speaker: Correct.

[00:31:44] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you for that clarification.

[00:31:45] Unknown Speaker: If directed to amend the trio, to incorporate the SB 330 baker date, then the current requirement would be removed, so it would replace the current requirement.

[00:31:57] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Thank you.

[00:32:01] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Hicks.

[00:32:04] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So you asked, you answered most of my questions in written form, so I only have one left. When I think of the trail or SB 330, I mostly think about, um, redoing larger apartments. And it seems to me, but this is where I want you to tell me if I'm picturing this wrong. It seems to me that the way this impacts smaller rental units the most is the temporary, temporary displacement for remodeling, maybe a city order for non permitted construction, those, let's see if those seem to be the ones that would impact it the most. Am I picturing that wrong, and, you know, can you, you are certainly more familiar than I am, paint a better picture of how it would interface with smaller, um, buildings. And also, any another council member asked, question, question number three, chart with vacate dates of projects. I imagine that are any of those considered smaller units? I'm not familiar with all of them, or smaller units, smaller buildings.

[00:33:19] Unknown Speaker: Um, I'll take a pass at the first question and just briefly confer with Honky about the chart and the responses. I think the way you've summarized it is accurate. So the proposed changes would potentially benefit small landlords if it makes renovation projects or remodel or rehab projects more feasible, if the projects are anticipated, they last for longer than 30 days, and so we would have a kind of a new carve out for that, and it wouldn't subject them to permanent relocation costs. Um, what we would do is evaluate a different, uh, menu of options and it would be shorter term and at a, at a lower cost. Um, Council is directing staff to take a look at um, potentially enhancing the benefits for group one or more groups. And if that increases the overall price tag on relocation assistance, then that can impact small landlords perhaps a little bit more because it's harder to redevelop if there are increased costs. So I think you've summarized well, the ways in which the modifications could potentially benefit smaller landlords in the areas where, if it's enhanced and increased overall cost, it could impact them the other way.

[00:34:49] Councilmember Alison Hicks: And then. Did you locate any, are there any smaller buildings on that list?

[00:34:54] Unknown Speaker: Yes, there are. Um, so most are larger buildings, as we assume, but there are some that have, like, 4 units. For instance, Charleston Road. Chera Vista, 319, Bonita, 982. Gostro 811, which is in process, that hasn't fully played out yet. Leghorn 219 was 6 units. Fayette, 2,645, was seven units, and share of Vista, 647 was four units.

[00:35:34] Unknown Speaker: Now, the Fayette was smaller, but it's being replaced by a... Oh, yeah. Bigger. Oh, yeah.

[00:35:40] Unknown Speaker: Some of these are...

[00:35:43] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, I guess I didn't ask my question very clearly. I meant smaller staying small, not redeveloping into something very large. I was very unclear, sorry.

[00:35:52] Unknown Speaker: That would be very seldom... because of all the extra costs that I come with redeveloped.

[00:35:58] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, yeah. Okay, thank you.

[00:36:08] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, I don't see any more questions than the other question I have about the temporary one is, how long does it take to renovate an apartment? Um, you know, if somebody moves out, they, they turn it around in a couple of weeks, normally, but, um, in your experience, what, what is, what's the difference between temporary and, really gutting the building?

[00:36:35] Unknown Speaker: First, you know, just taking, like, at comparable jurisdictions, um, several of them have sort of that 60 day threshold, um, and we would want to evaluate um, those and maybe some some different options as well. It can be also challenging to, you know, if things come up in terms of the, um, the work or unexpected delays. And so, um, we're thinking that we might evaluate temporary displacement up to 90 days, not that it will be 90 days, but probably 45, 60, or 90 days as part of our evaluation, and one of the things that we want to be mindful of, as one of the speakers mentioned, is, um, how to structure it in a way where temporary doesn't drag on, to become permanent, and then evaluating some many of options of what interim short relocation options might be, and we would take a look at what we did with 660 Mariposa as an option. So in terms of the time frame, though, we probably look at around the 45, 60, 90 day options.

[00:37:38] Mayor Pat Showalter: That sounds reasonable. Okay, thank you. All right, so, um, with the end of the questions, then we, um, asking you questions. You've asked, now we come to the, you've asked, ask questions. So we're supposed to answer those. And I think that since they're just two, and they're sort of collective questions, Let's go and do question one first, and then do question two. So question one, is, um, it's on, uh, 10, the 10th slide, and it's, it's 5 questions, and it's, does the city count? Council support staff recommendation, numbers one through five, or have other feedback or recommendations for staff to incorporate. And I'm glad to see council member Ramirez would like to get started.

[00:38:24] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I support the staff recommendations.

[00:38:28] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Ramos.

[00:38:31] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. I also support the staff recommendations for question one. I would, um, I'll add one small comment there, I guess, uh, in that the goal of our trio is so that if, if there, we try really hard to make sure people aren't displaced from with our current homes, but there are times when we can't, we can't make that happen. And so Trao was done so that we can essentially keep people in our community if they can't be in their homes. And I think when I'm hoping as we continue to do this, that there is still a lot more data checking to make sure that we are reaching those goals. But other than that, I do ID support staff's recommendation. And I hope that we continue to track how efficient Trao and how impactful Trao is in terms of keeping our residents in Mountain View, should they want to stay in Mountain View?

[00:39:34] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, and thank you for mentioning the goals, because I think as the policy body for the city, it's important that we talk about the goals. Why are we doing what we want to do? Okay, next is, um, uh, Lucas Ramirez again? Oh, okay. Allison Hicks.

[00:39:54] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I also support all five staff recommendations. I think this will be a short meeting tonight. Um, but, uh, and I also support tracking how this is working, and, you know, maybe running it through the RHC, or who, and back to us, uh, as a body. And also, um, maybe, uh, looking through measure BB, just to see if, since it was highly recommended by several residents, to make, see if there's anything you could, you could take from it, or learn from it for the future.

[00:40:29] Mayor Pat Showalter: Great, um, Vice Mayor Manachek.

[00:40:31] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I'm okay with the staff recommendation. for one through four. But on 5, I'm actually okay with just letting SB 330 provide the policy for now, um, until we, you know, this is talking about updating the trio, but when we look at doing our own version of SB 330, maybe we'll look at it then. Thank you.

[00:40:57] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Next is council member Abi Coca.

[00:41:01] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I agree with the vice mayor.

[00:41:11] Mayor Pat Showalter: And now we have Council member Kameh.

[00:41:13] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks, Mayor. Um, so as a council member Ramos mentioned, um, appreciate staffs, hard and thorough work on ways to expand opportunities for residents in Mountain View to be able to continue to stay in Mountain View, um, I'm, I'm fine with the, um, if I recommendations. And for number five, I know that we've been looking at our local replacement requirements as well. And so, I guess, for council member, Mattachek, and our vice mayor, Mattachek, and Abbe Kuger, are you thinking you just want to continue on the path that we had been, which is looking at our local replacement requirements? Because I think it came to council last October. Um, and we're continuing to look at them. So you want to continue down that path rather than adding our SB 330 type, just trying to understand things. So, um, let me make sure I understood what was in the staff report. I thought it said that, um, SB 330 would be the one that's followed right now, um, unless we added something into our own, um, trio that was more... aggressive, I guess, than SB 330. Is that right?

[00:42:37] Unknown Speaker: Um, it would be... So, as this came up when we were evaluating Trey, when SP330, then the question came up is, how if this were to be addressed, how would it be addressed? Um, it was um, part of local replacement requirements, as council member, um, committee discussed, and, um, um, council asked us to bring uh, development ordinance and and bring that back. And as we're looking at Trao as well, then the questions came up, uh, in terms of where 1st right return of the SB 330s, I should go. So it's really a more, I think, a matter of where it goes, whether it's part of trail, part of the eventual bring bag for local replacement requirements or some kind of cross reference. But we wanted to make sure that there was a connection between these two housing element projects that we're working on.

[00:43:25] Unknown Speaker: Okay, yeah, so I guess, um, my thought was we would just do it as part of our, uh, doing our own version of SB 330. Okay, thank you. replacement requirements, sorry.

[00:43:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: Great. Thank you, thank you for that clarification.

[00:43:40] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I think that for, um, right now, I'll go with the staff recommendation, just because I feel like the need is immediate, um, for our residents, but interested in how these two talk to each other as, uh, director Chen mentioned on, um, cross referencing each other. Thank you.

[00:44:01] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, and I too support the staff recommendations, but going back to the goals, I'm really, really interested in improving the temporary displacement system, because I think another one of the goals is to make sure that our housing stock is very well maintained. And I think right now, the way this is set up. It's kind of a deterrent for landlords to do that maintenance. So that's just the comment I want to make, that's an additional goal for me, is making sure that our housing stock is well maintained. Um, okay. So with that, I think we moved to the 2nd question, and the 2nd question is, do things that the RHC supported, evaluating the Trao benefits for group one, and evaluating moving costs for all three groups. So these are asking staff to study this, not to necessarily make a decision on it this evening, right? Okay. So question two, does the city council agree with evaluating options for increased benefits for group one, using the consideration slash parameters discussed above? Additionally, does staff agree with evaluating moving costs for all three groups? And again, Council member Ramirez is gonna take us off.

[00:45:17] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. First, a quick question for staff. I know there has been some case law, I think, in San Francisco most recently, that suggests there might be some guidance available for how a relocation assistance program could be structured and the generosity of the benefits. So, as you continue to evaluate modifications to the ordinance, are you going to work with the city attorney's office to make sure we're within whatever guidance may be established under case law?

[00:45:53] Wayne Chen: Yeah, so that's part of the economic and legal considerations that we evaluate based on what council directs staff to study.

[00:46:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Thank you. With that, generally speaking, I'm interested in continuing to evaluate options. The only one that I feel fairly strongly about is moving expenses, because that is objective, and that's something that is, I think we can determine what reasonable accommodations may be to address moving expenses, and that's something that's incurred by all groups. based on the report and the information presented about other jurisdictions, I feel like the benefits that we provide are actually pretty generous. So I'm not necessarily seeking, you know, extraordinary increases. I think, you know, continuing to evaluate and coming back with recommendations as appropriate based on the intended goal of the program. But actually, one of the reasons I wanted to speak 1st was because I was curious to see if my colleagues would support allowing a voluntary option that I think actually would better meet the objective, right? The check is great, but it's not the same thing as the assurance of a unit in Mountain View or anywhere nearby. And one of the things I'd like staff to explore and come back with recommendations on is allowing or having some voluntary option where a rental property owner can say, hey, you know, in lieu of that check, I can provide you a comparable unit in Mountain View, even if you may not be able to meet the income qualification otherwise, right? I think the bigger problem is we have a lot of folks in Mountain View, who are paying more than 30% of their income in rent. So that $12,000 check is great, but it's not going to help them overcome that barrier. And, you know, many of us who have rented have probably had to show our property manager that we can actually make that rent, right? So having some assurance from the rental property owner side, that a tenant can is able to pay is more important than anything else. So, um, I'd welcome staff feedback on this, uh, and defer to the recommendations that you would come back with, but it's essentially, an option, it would be voluntary. We've seen in some redevelopment proposals, this extended. The reserve is a good example. I think this was also an option provided by, there was one other developer who had shared something like this with us, but it feels like, you know, the landlord may take a little bit of a risk. Somebody is paying, you know, 50% of their rent, uh, their income and rent. But because that tenant has a good track record, they're paying the rent, even if it is more than one third of their income, you know, they would at least have that benefit of the assurance of a comparable unit in Mountain View, which I think, personally, is more valuable than a $12,000 check. So that's the idea I'd like to explore. I'm open to feedback from my colleagues about the benefits themselves. But, more importantly, thinking about how do we get around that very challenging hurdle for most households, who, you know, just don't have the income to find a unit, if they're displaced. Thank you.

[00:49:28] Mayor Pat Showalter: Next would be council member Alison Hicks.

[00:49:31] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So just to clarify what that, what you're proposing, um, because Prometheus will be with us later tonight, what you're saying is, if they're remodeling, for example, if they're, um, tearing down and redoing a particular property, and there's a person getting, um, with affordable housing there, they can offer to move that household to another Prometheus unit in Mountain View with with the same deal. Maybe you can fill in the blanks here, if I'm not explaining it well enough, with an example, so that I'm sure, so that I understand exactly what you're suggesting.

[00:50:11] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I think that example is reasonable. The developer at the reserve had offered multiple pathways, right? You can take the check, and then you're on your own, or if there was space available, you can relocate to another unit in the same property. I can't remember if that was at the same rent, or if there was a modest increase, or you can relocate to another property owned by, is it, I don't remember, is it, um, I can't remember the property understand, or the, I don't think it was the speaker property. That's why I use Prometheus.

[00:50:46] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, because we could. Sorry.

[00:50:48] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Whoever, so whoever, they had multiple properties, including in other jurisdictions, right? I think they had one in Sunnyvale that had vacancies. and so tenants who otherwise would have been displaced. The project never moved forward, but if they had been displaced, they would be able to go to one of the other units in another jurisdiction. That was up to them, right? The tenant had that option voluntarily. And so I think that's creative, and I think for many, I think most households actually would prefer that than a check. the assurance of a comparable unit somewhere close by. So their kids can, you know, complete, you know, finish going to school or or they could be near family or their job, whatever the case may be. But the biggest hurdle, based on many of us have spoken with people who have been displaced in our community. The biggest hurdle I've heard about is that $12,000 check is not going to help them get past the income qualification. Right. So the $12,000 check would most likely be used to pay rent anyway. unless I move in with my mother or something. Pay rent, but I can't... Right. I can't show that... But I can't find one at that price. Right.

[00:51:58] Councilmember Alison Hicks: And so, what you're doing, since this is a list of two, and now you've added a third, you evaluate exploring that, because their details, it seems like their details to be worked out. I would trust staffs. They may come back to us and say, Lucas, your idea is really awful, and here's why. And that's perfectly fine, you know, but I think. They may come back to you and ask you what you were talking about, but anyway.

[00:52:21] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: That's true too.

[00:52:21] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Um, okay, so I would, yes, I support exploring the, um, the two staff, uh, recommendations for exploration and adding on, um, what council member Ramirez suggested exploring, uh, giving an alternative unit in the landlord's property to the, to the household.

[00:52:47] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Council member Amos.

[00:52:51] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. I also support staff's recommendation of evaluating increasing trade benefits for group one and moving costs for all 3 groups. What council member Ramirez did trigger a memory. When I 1st got appointed to counsel, I actually had to move from my apartment because my roommate would cause some conflict of interest. Anyway, it was, basically I had to move. And just searching for something my income would qualify for was actually really difficult because I was able to, at the time, I was living with roommates and I was able to split 3 ways. It was a very tight quarters, but like I was able to split 3 ways. I could afford it. Um, but then when we were looking out at, um, what units were out there, essentially, like nothing was below $2000 a month. And that was, that was like the oldest units you can get kind of thing. And if I had to income qualify for it, I think I could have whipped the council additional stipend, but without it, and I was just starting council, so I didn't even know how that would even work. So, like, I could see how hard it is to move from one place to another and with the income qualifications. I do know that during when we were doing our anti, our displacement response, stakeholder groups, that was something what a council member Ramirez was talking about, the voluntary offering of a unit. That was something that the landlord stakeholder group, tried to emphasize a lot, actually. So I feel like that's, that's a great bone to throw. Because, um, on that, it, I, I would, I like to respect their attempt at trying to find options that solve the problem in their way. So I feel like that's a good place to explore. Um, and for the moving costs. just sucks, no matter how much money you make. You have to get the, the, the van, you have to move, get the movers. If you move it all yourself, it sucks even more because that's more time. So, um, no matter what, uh, your income level moving just sucks. Thank you.

[00:55:06] Mayor Pat Showalter: Uh, Council member Abbe Koga.

[00:55:09] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I will I do support number one. Number two, I have a different opinion. As I looked at, I can't remember where it was. Maybe it was in your briefing presentation, Wayne, but there was a chart with what the rents are for 80% AMI and 120% AMI, and where was that? Did you have it? or I saw it somewhere. The point being that when you look at what the rents are for those income categories, they're pretty close to what market rate is. And, um, so my, you know, question is if you can afford market rate at 80 or 120%. I, you know, your ability to move is much more open and you have much more options. And so, um, you know, I would just really, um, you know, prefer to support or to assist those who really need the extra funding to to make the move. Um, you know, this is the fundamental, and then the issue, the other part of this is, I think the size of the development matters. And, you know, you have heard me over the years, like my concern has for the mom and pop landlords who might be this senior couple that, you know, this is their retirement nest egg. And I just don't want to put undue burden on, you know, that type of property owner, you know, at the benefit of someone making a $200,000 at, you know, one of the tech companies. So I believe I mean, it means testing is important. I, you know, believe in helping those who really need the financial assistant to make the move. And, um, all of this adds to cost for the property owner and the larger ones, yes, probably maybe able to afford it. But I am, you know, concerned about the smaller developments that are run by, you know, your average person. So, um, that's my, uh, so I would limit it to, I think it was, is it the 80 up to 80% AMY that, um, SV 330 requires, um, that would be my preference. Thank you. Oh, and I mean, I support your idea. We've seen it work and so definitely would support that. Thanks.

[00:57:42] Mayor Pat Showalter: Next is Vice Mayor Manachek.

[00:57:44] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Yeah, I agree with the 1st part of question two. And the 2nd part, I agree with council member Abbe Koga. And on the third part. Um, I can see some benefits of saying that staff should look at that for, like, a replacement unit in another one of their buildings, because, um, if you do these one off, it's more time consuming. And I was, at some point, while you were talking council member Ramirez, I was thinking, Oh, well, maybe it's an alternative mitigation. But maybe we don't want to open it up that far. And let's just say this is an alternative that we would look at and limited to one. So I'd be okay with that. Thank you.

[00:58:34] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Kameh?

[00:58:38] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Sorry, I was still wrapping my head around. So there sounds like there's three different items, and I was actually tracking which ones Vice Mayor was saying, because they were in different order. So, It's the evaluating the increasing trail benefits from group one. We're still talking about the moving costs. And then the 3rd was explore alternate unit in in the property, portfolio. Yeah, okay. Right. Okay. I'm fine with, it's just an evaluation and staff would come back. So since it's no final action, I'm open to the evaluation and see what works best for the community. Thank you.

[00:59:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, I share the same opinion. It seems to me that because this is an evaluation, um, and I don't think this is unordinately broad, I do think, uh, I particularly like the, I mean, I think the idea that, that, um, a property owner who owned a lot of property could, um, could help move people, is, is pretty straightforward. But I would also hope that maybe we would encourage those larger property owners to from time to time work with smaller property owners to help them out. I mean, what bring this to mind is that there was a fire some time this year. And I think it was 12 apartments were, you know, burned down, and, you know, in a few hours. And by two days, or maybe it was the next day. The fire department had found a place for each of those people to live. And I just thought that was amazing. So, um, I, you know, I like the idea of, of course, for the large owners, it's easier for them to do it. But I think it might also be possible for there to be, you know, ways for smaller owners to work with the bigger owners to help with that, too. And as all of us know, who've moved, and I guess all of us have moved. It's traumatic. So we want to make it as smooth for people as possible, and the goal really is to keep people in Mountain View. So I think that we've come to the end of the questions for the study session. I want to check in with you and make sure you have what you need.

[01:01:01] Wayne Chen: I, um, I do. I think this is clear and appreciate the feedback and direction from counsel.

[01:01:08] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, well, I think we all appreciate the, you know, the... We've worked on this for quite a while, and now we're getting to a point where we're improving it. We've learned a lot of lessons, and now we can take advantage of that learning, and so that's really appropriate. So, thank... Oh, vice mayor man check. Yeah, just real quickly, since this is a study session. Um, can you just do a quick summary so it's in the record?

[01:01:32] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes. Thanks. So let me just go back. Um, so for question one, overall council, um, supported, all the staff recommendations, um, and then, uh, we did have a couple of comments regarding letting the 1st review term be done through SP330, but overall, there was support for all the recommendations. Um, and then for question two, there was, um, general support for, um, So there was support for looking at group, um, um, across the board, um, there was a majority support for looking at moving costs. And then there was all support for this additional piece of adding a menu option, which is the way I'm thinking about it is, in addition to a check, one of the options can be identifying a replacement housing option, whether it's through partnerships or whether it's through the landlord, developer's own portfolio. Thank you very much.

[01:02:44] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, with that, we will recess until 6:30 when the regular meeting starts. Thank you very much.

[01:04:28] Mayor Pat Showalter: Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call the regular session of the Mountain View City council to order. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, individual, liberty, and justice, moral.

[01:05:01] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Roll call.

[01:05:05] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Abbe Koko?

[01:05:06] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here,

[01:05:06] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Hicks.

[01:05:07] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here.

[01:05:07] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member committee.

[01:05:08] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Here.

[01:05:09] City Clerk Heather Glaser: M member Ramirez. Council member Ramos.

[01:05:12] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Here,

[01:05:12] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Matachek.

[01:05:13] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Here.

[01:05:14] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor show Walter?

[01:05:15] Mayor Pat Showalter: Here.

[01:05:15] City Clerk Heather Glaser: You have a quorum?

[01:05:17] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, everyone is here. All right. Well, then, at the beginning of our meetings, we have presentations. And tonight we are honored to have a particularly special one. We have a... We would like to celebrate. Supervisor Joe Semidian. So, I have a proclamation to read for Joe, or part of it I will read. But over the years, Joe has really served as the gold standard for local public service. Most of us sitting here have been tutored by Joe. I think all of us have been tutored by Joe, and how to be a council member, how to run a campaign. And pretty much, probably everybody in the audience has also been taught about Joe's 13 tips for advocacy. So, uh, we'll talk about Joe's, uh, in the proclamation, we'll talk about Joe's 36 years of public service, which is just amazing. But what's, I think, even more amazing, is that 28 of them are in Mountain View. I mean, or four Mountain View. That's, um, it just, it's really wonderful. We've so appreciated. Okay, so, um, supervisor. will you join me at the podium, please? Well, I think what we'll do tonight is we'll reverse the order a little bit. We're going to read the proclamation, and we'll give you some presents, and then we'll have everybody come down to, and you can say some words, and then we'll have everybody come down to have a picture, and, um, and... Well, I look at all the people who are waiting for their item.

[01:07:18] Joe Simitian: That's right, while you look at all those people.

[01:07:20] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. So, um, uh, I just, uh... You've served in the city of Palo Alto from 1992 to '96, and as a member of the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors, um, representing District 5, you've served from 1996. And then from 2016 to 2020. You were a member of the California State Assembly, from 2000 to 2004, and a member of the State Senate, from 2004 to 2012. You authored a mere 108 pieces of substantive legislation in highway safety, privacy, and identity theft, energy, water, the environment, elder abuse, education, child welfare, good government, health care, public safety, and justice, business, and e commerce, and consumer protection. In other words, the whole nine yards. You were a member, you've been a member of the county board of supervisors, again. You've served as the president from 2018 to 2019. And you've really been a champion, um, throughout the whole state, but particularly in, um, but particularly in, uh, locally, for affordable housing in Santa Clara County. And we're very, very grateful for that. And there are many people who live in affordable housing projects that really wouldn't have been there without your leadership. So they're very, very appreciative. Joe's been a constant and supportive presence in Mountain View for over 28 years. And he's always aware and willing to support good things happening for his constituents. Mountain View is proud to be a community for all, and strives to live up to Joe's description of us as a caring community with a can do city government. And, whereas, having served as a school board member, mayor, supervisor, assembly member, and state senator, representing residents in Sacramento, and San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties, for over 36 years, Supervisor Joe Samidian will term out of office from the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors after 41. 41 years.

[01:09:43] Joe Simitian: 41? I want credit for every one of those five years, man.

[01:09:46] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. All right, all right. That's not what it says here. Anyway, now therefore. Be it resolved that the city of Mountain View City Council, on behalf of its neighbors, members, city staff, and the community, does hereby express appreciation to Joe Samidian, for his 41 years of dedicated public service to the community and the state of California. Thank you so much. And then we have a few...

[01:10:14] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, Mayor Pat. We know that you have many, many proclamations and plaques, and you, you know, you deserve all of them. But, um, so we have another one that I hope you will appreciate and enjoy, um, from the people of the, uh, city of Mountain View. But I think even more special, because we don't give this to too many people who are not employees or on our city council. We have had a special street sign made for you. And, um... I hope that you will find a place of, uh... a place of, uh, honor to put this.

[01:11:11] Joe Simitian: If you see me hanging from a lamp post in Mountain View, you know what's going on?

[01:11:15] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. I don't know, mine is over a doorstop, but, you know, you can put yours wherever you want. Thank you.

[01:11:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: So with that, why don't you say a few words, and then we'll all come down for a picture. Thank you.

[01:11:27] Joe Simitian: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you. council members. I say thank you first, because that is tip number 13 for everyone who's ever been through 13 tips. And, um, I apologize for having my back to council, as I speak to folks here, who I do know, are waiting for their items later in the agenda. Uh, I just want to say, um, thank you to all of you for your service, and your friendship, and your partnership, as we have done good work together over these last 12 years, my most recent tenure at the board of supervisors. Whether it's the all inclusive playground, but I think we're finally gonna get to cut that ribbon on next month, or the affordable housing that Mayor Pat referenced, or, you know, even just swing by sidewalk office hours at the farmer's market to have a conversation and to share a point of view, um, from day one, um, who has always been a caring community with a can do city government. And you caught my, uh, quote, absolutely right. I want to share just one quick story before we do our photo. There are a lot of common projects that we've worked on together here in Mountain View over this last dozen years in particular. One that has a particular place in my heart is the homeless shelter and homeless services center at Trinity Church, which is appropriately enough at the corner of Hope and Mercy Streets. You can't make this stuff up. And when I first began working with folks here in the community on that shelter, I was working with the then pastor, pastor love, at the corner of Hope and Mercy Street, and we were trying to get parking across the street at the bank, and so I called the chairman of the board, and said, Mike, can you help us out? And his name's Mike Shepherd. So he said, Well, I guess if it's at hope and mercy, and it's pastor love, I should be a good shepherd, and, you know, try and bring my people along. And so the parking all got resolved. But the part that says the most about what kind of community this is and how marvels it has been to represent this community's last dozen years is this. You have to go in front of the zoning administrator to get a permit. And, uh, the church and the shelter are, literally, embedded in a lovely single family neighborhood here in the downtown. And, um, people wondered how that would go. And what I want to tell you is, here's how it went. The hearing lasted seven minutes. It lasted seven minutes, not because it wasn't rigorous. There was lots of paper and lots of conversation. Lasted seven minutes, because there were no opponents. Not one. No one stepped up to say, not in my neighborhood. No one said, We don't want these folks, uh, in our residential setting. And the only thing that can top that is the fact that we had to come back for a compliance hearing a year later. in the same room down the hall with the same zoning administrator. And that hearing lasted three minutes. And it lasted three minutes because after a year of operation, there wasn't a single complaint. which I think says a lot about how well the shelter was operating, but I think it also says volumes about the kind of community in which we were privileged to do the work. So, when folks tell you that there's no place for these kinds of services, programs, shelters, in a residential setting, you can tell them that, well, in Mountain View, we are a caring community, with a can do city government, and as long as you do your part, and deliver programs and services in a way that's consistent with what we have in the way of expectations for our city, will all be good. And for these past years, we've all been good, and I think the residents of this community are better off by virtue of your service, your partnership, your collaboration, and I know it has certainly been a joy for me. With that, I'm going to say thank you very, very much. I do want to introduce my wife Mary, who is known to many of you. She's slinking down as soon as she gets, but she is my partner in all good works, and, uh, I think you all know just how important it is to have that kind of a partner when you're trying to move the needle a little bit on some of these seemingly attractable problems. Madam Mayor, I'm in your hands.

[01:16:04] Mayor Pat Showalter: What would you like me to do, except stop, be quiet, and...? That sounds good. And also, I need to. Thank you for just a second. I need to ask if any council members would like to comment. We usually do that, and then we have public comment, and then we'll take a picture. So what council members like to comment? Um, Council member, Ramos.

[01:16:25] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Um, thank you, Mayor. I would just like to emphasize how grateful we are to supervise or submit in. Even the people I don't agree with, view you as the gold standard of what an elected official should be. Um, I think it is somewhat, you have become someone that I have been fortunate to learn from, to be able to observe, and and a kind of, it, I, I'm, how do I say this? I'm very, I can be very fiery and driven by my passions, which, um, it's not, what I, what I like to learn from you is a lesson that, that I've seen, that you have done, is almost like there are no villains, kind of vibe when you are trying to push for something. It doesn't matter. I remember watching this great documentary, the $one a day or the $100 a day, yeah. And, um, and the story on how you got essentially Republican votes to, to go, not by watering down your legislation, but essentially appealing to people's humanity. I think it's a very powerful lesson for us as elected officials. We can still be driven by our passions. But as long as we looked at everyone as if they're partners for the goals that we set. It's a very strong lesson that really sat with me. And I think it'll sit with me for the rest of my time. Thank you.

[01:17:58] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Vice mayor Matache.

[01:18:00] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Oh, boy, thank you so much. for being such an outstanding supervisor. It's kind of hard to see you go. I really appreciate how effective you are. You're probably the most effective supervisor I have ever seen. And you have done so much to bring services to North County. We've all benefited from that, as has our community, and it's been just a pleasure to have you supporting us and doing all that. It was mentioned before about the 13 tips for successful advocacy. I've seen you give that presentation a few times, and if you all haven't seen it, you really should check it out. There are videos online. And there's also just the paper list you can get, but it's much better when you hear the supervisor presented. So I encourage you all because they are spot on. So thank you for that. I do wish you well in the future, and I hope you won't be a stranger. I appreciate our friendship and all that I've learned from you, and you will be missed. Thank you.

[01:19:13] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Hicks.

[01:19:18] Councilmember Alison Hicks: What was that? You said best supervisor ever. I can't I can't top that. Um, and, but what I want to thank you for among the many things that you've done over the past few years is helping us with this safe parking. That was, I think, really a heavy lift, and really, although it hasn't solved the homeless problem in Mountain View or in the Bay Area. It is a model that has been copied. I mean, I've, I saw you for the opening. I think of the Palo Alto safe parking. When I was mayor, the mayors from the entire county came to look at one of our safe parking lots. I've heard they're cupping it in Sunnyvale, so it really has reverberations. And in addition, um, I want to remind you of something that I think you'll agree with me on, that, um, that, uh, one way to, or the, let's see how I wrote this down. One of the things that makes a really great elected official is having a planning degree under your belt. So, Joe and I share, we're both alma maters at the same school, and had the same admissions advisor, K Bach, who was very important to both of us, actually, in our schooling at that time. And I just, as you think about what you're going to do next, I want you to kind of talk to Kay and ask her. What would she advise? Because, you know, we still need to see you, and we still need your help. And, um, maybe you can give maybe some other planners in the room, can become elected officials, as well. There are usually a lot of planners in this room.

[01:21:12] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Kameh?

[01:21:14] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Hello, sir. It's hard. Those of you may know, I worked for the supervisor for nearly four years, so it's hard to call him Joe, although he always insist. Um, but I just wanted to touch on, um, what's been an honor and privilege as a policy aid for you, and then, as a member of council, is how you make people feel seen, and how you make people feel like they matter, no, it's no issue is too small. As we worked on getting the county to get a printer together. so that those coming to meetings would be able to make copies of their handouts to pass out those to coming to board meetings. And no matter is too great, as you talked about, with Hope's Corner. I think that in many ways, you have been able to see situations and not be daunted by the task at hand, but step into it, whether it's, we didn't get to talk about, you know, Buena Vista mobile home park, um, you were doing postage paid in Santa Clara County before we did that as a state automatic recount, making sure that people were able to participate civically. And I think that all of us, on counsel, and especially myself, think about that when we're tackling media policy issues, is don't step back, step in, lean in, and be able to find a solution and be creative. And one of my favorite lessons that you teach is your hands-free legislation, and how you introduce that bill over and over, and it was eight years. Is that right? Eight years from the day, it was introduced to the day, it took effect, yeah. Right. And so that in, we can also say there, well, we hope things happen quickly, it may take time, and to have the patients to do it well, and to do it right, because it's the right thing to do. So thank you for that lesson, and thank you for always knowing that Mountain View is your best city, because it's your largest city in your district. Thank you.

[01:23:22] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Council member Abbe Koga.

[01:23:25] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Mr. Josephity and sir. Good evening, very. Good evening, supervisor. Nice to be able to call you that. Thank you so much. It's been really an honor. I believe I met you, um, pretty early on. I think it's been at least 30 years, and I may have met Mary before. you, but, um, I've been able to watch you, and really, all the levels of government that you've served in, and you've been a real, um, example of, um, the highest standards and public service, uh, listening to your constituents. As I've traveled through District 5 this last year, been reminded by many, all of the cities in this district, how you've really fought for each community, fought for District 5, which is often seen, frankly, as maybe the district that doesn't need help, but you know that we have those in need in our community, and, frankly, from an equity perspective, every district deserves its fair share, and you've really been a fighter for all of us. So, I'm very grateful to you, and, um, I've been told and reminded I have big shoes to fill. And I will do my best to do so, but I appreciate that I have you as an example to look towards, and, like, to follow. And so thank you very much for your many years of service, and I look forward to seeing what you do next. I look forward to seeing what that is too, so...

[01:24:54] Mayor Pat Showalter: Councilman, Council member Ramirez.

[01:24:56] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Two quick stories. Story of the first. I remember meeting you the first time around 10 years ago. You've heard this before. I won an auction, silent auction, lunch with supervisor submittian. I didn't know what to expect, but I came in prepared, and you were very kind. You met me at a restaurant here in downtown Mountain View. And I brought up two issues near and dear to your heart, redistricting and Laufco. And I remember, yes, I was a nerd then, too. And I think you gave me around two hours of your time, extremely generous, very thoughtful, walking me through these issues and saying something like, I'm not sure I've ever had a meeting with a constituent where these two issues came up in tandem, so that memory will be cherished forever. Second story, I remember calling you late one night in March 2020, very anxious in that about a matter going before the board of supervisors, supervisors. I was appealing you to vote for a referral to implement an emergency eviction moratorium, which was desperately needed, given that we were about to prevent a bunch of folks from working in our county. And I, you gave me time, and then he said, you know, Lucas, I'm not a monster. It turned out, you actually were a co author on the referral to implement that very policy item. And I felt a little silly for not having done my homework then, but I was greatly, and I know our community is greatly appreciative, as my colleagues have said, for the work you've done to make sure that the most vulnerable among us are protected. Thank you for your service, your mentorship and your friendship.

[01:26:42] Mayor Pat Showalter: City manager, McCarthy.

[01:26:43] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Mayor. So, supervisor submittee, and I want to thank you from, uh, staff's perspective, from my perspective. You were never, um, more than just a text or a phone call away for anything that we needed at a staff level. Your team was incredible to work with, so incredible that we hired one right from under you. But I think in council member Ramirez touched on this, just the incredible amount of work that we did with you and your team during the pandemic, just cannot be highlighted enough. I think we're we're all so far looking at it in our rear view mirror that when I reflect back and look at just the incredible amount of work that we did with you and your team for the benefit of Mountain View residents, it really was extraordinary. Everything from the very 1st mass vaccination site at our community center. I remember talking to you about that, um, and all the other things that we did just during the pandemic to help serve our residents and really all the district 5 residents. I want to thank you for that and for your leadership and knowledge too. It was just incredible to be able to have that sort of support at the county level for the things we needed. We've heard about the other projects you've helped champion the magical Bridge Playground, Crestview Hotel, so many others, the cold weather shelters, and of course, safe parking, which we could have never got off the ground, without your support, and the county support, because the county provides 1000000s of dollars for the city to be able to operate, what is the largest safe parking program in Santa Clara County. So thank you for your support of that and for your leadership. And I think you really have been someone, even as a staff, the type of elected official that's just been so great to work with and to work, work alongside. So thank you so much for everything you've done for the city of Mountain View and just for being such an incredible partner. We appreciate it.

[01:28:42] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so let's all go in front and have a council picture.

[01:28:46] Supervisor Joe Simitian: And while you're coming, Madam Mayor, let me just assure the city manager that, um, she has any trouble getting through to the next supervisor, I know her, and, uh, I'm happy to put you in touch, okay? Thank you. It was all very kind.

[01:29:03] Unknown Speaker: What. Yeah, yeah. I think I could stay in the back of this week.

[01:29:31] Mayor Pat Showalter: face Thank you. I could do a very patient audience. So we do have public comment. And the first up is Alex Brown. We also have one person on Zoom.

[01:30:16] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I'll talk to me. Joe?

[01:30:21] Unknown Speaker: Mary, thank you. Joe, you're welcome.

[01:30:28] Unknown Speaker: I mean, also thank you, but I feel like everyone says thank you.

[01:30:33] Unknown Speaker: You're welcome. Yes, he is very welcome.

[01:30:38] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. On Zoom. We have Peter Katz. Peter, are you there?

[01:30:47] Peter Katz: I am indeed. Thank you very much, Mayor. This is Peter Katz, CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce. But I want to speak on behalf, not just of the chamber, but also as an individual, having had the great honor and pleasure, to have been in Joe's jurisdiction in San Mateo County prior to Santa Clara County. Joe, you've been a tireless champion of all our small businesses, our city, our region, and, of course, leadership Mountain View, where your 13 tips are now canon, and, uh, always receive a standing ovation. You are everything an elected official should be honest, transparent, clear spoken, collaborative, clever, and thoroughly engaging. You'll be sorely missed, but your legacy will remain strong and present. I'm just, excuse me. Sorry that I can't be there in person, as you are one of my favorite people, but please accept our deepest thanks and can't wait until our paths cross again, either personally or professionally. Thank you on behalf of our businesses. Thank you on behalf of our residents, and thank you again on behalf of everyone here. Thank you.

[01:32:01] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. We also have Robert Cox. That right?

[01:32:12] Robert Cox: Yeah, I'm vice president. I mean, vice chair of the whole Mountwood Neighborhood Association. And I want to thank Joe for the time he was talking about when he came to talk our neighborhood association about what would be happening with Hope's Corner and the cold, whether shelter there. Uh, we had that was one of the biggest attended meetings that we had. And, uh, you know, all it took was the word from Joe that, you know, if any of you guys are worried about what might go on there, I've got this covered, you've got my word, there won't be any problems. And it was just Joe's word to say that that made all the difference. So thank you, sir, for your service to our community, and we hope to hear more from you in the future.

[01:33:00] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Robert. Okay, so I think that does bring us to the end of item three, our presentations. Thank you, particularly to Supervisor, Submidian, and Mary, for coming, and to everyone for speaking. So, yeah. Now, now we are going to move on to item four, which is our consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion, unless any member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration. If an item is pulled from the consent calendar, it will be considered separately following approval of the balance of the consent calendar. If you would like to speak on these items or the next item, oral communications on nonagenda items, in person, please submit a blue speaker card now. Would any member of the council like to pull an item? I see vice mayor. Now the check has pushed her button. Thank you.

[01:34:02] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: I would like to pull item 4.1 for individual consideration.

[01:34:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Any other items would like to be folded. Would anybody like to comment on an item? I'm just, you know, I'm just, as my, as my custom. I'm just going to quickly comment on the other items. First, 4.2 is board appointments. I really just want to thank all the people who applied. We had a wonderful group of people to interview, and I want to thank everyone who was being appointed. We appreciate all the work you will do on behalf of our city. Your service is really important. And then 4.5 and 4.6 are important steps for another affordable housing complex. And as housing is pretty much the biggest crisis in our community, every step we take toward more affordable housing is important. I want to take the staff for 4.7 about the transportation grant. I know from having administered grants in my experience. It's getting them is a lot of work, experience, implementing them as a lot of work, and then writing up the report is a lot of work. So thank you all for doing that. And also, 4.8, I'm being appointed to Bosqua, and I would just like to thank everybody. We'll see what happens. I presume it will pass, but, um, this is something, this is the Bay Area water supply, um, conservation agency, and I, um, I'm looking forward to getting to serve on that. Vice Mayor Matachek has done a wonderful job the last four or five years, and I know she will be missed, and I have a feeling we have several lunch meetings in the next few weeks to get me up to speak. Okay, with that, let's go, do I have a motion for the remainder of the, uh... Okay, so, uh, council member Hicks, would you like to read what needs to be read?

[01:36:11] Unknown Speaker: Do you ask for public comment first? Am I right?

[01:36:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh, you're right. We should have public comment on the remainder. Really, we can have public comment. On the consent. On the consent calendar. calendar that's being moved. Oh, Manuel, Salazar. Would you like to speak? Great.

[01:36:52] Leonard Salasad: I wasn't ready, but I will make do. So good evening, Mayor Schwalter, members of the Mountain View City Council. My name is Leonard Salasad, and I am here on behalf of SV at home to express her strong support for the proposed Affordable Housing Development at 57 through 67 East Evelyn Avenue, and to urge you to approve status recommendation to reserve 11.300000 in BMR, in-loop fees, including 6.300000 to be immediately appropriated for pre-development acquisition activities. That was very long, convoluted, but essentially, what we're saying is we very much approve this project. We think it's absolutely wonderful. It's gonna deliver 143 homes, 141 of which will be deeply affordable with rents for a household earning between 3 to 60% AMI. It's wonderful that, you know, it's utilizing the state density bonus at no additional cost of the city in order to meet, um, you know, design parking and, um, height requirements, um, that otherwise would have been infeasible. The project reflects, you know, forward thinking design, it's situated adjacent to freeways, transit, and the Stevens Creek Trail, and it's going to provide residents with convenient access to jobs, schools, and other services. Not to mention that it's also having on-site amenities, including community rooms, outdoor courtyards, and resident services, which are further going to enhance the quality of life for the future residents of this site. By approving stats recommendation, the council will ensure the project's continued progress and secure the necessary funding to move forward. I do advise against delaying the project just because of the fact that this will jeopardize the timelines and feasibility, ultimately, which could impact Mountain View's ability to meet its regional housing needs allocation. SA at home commend, city, staff, and charities housing for their collaborative effort in having this project move forward, and we urge you to approve the vital investment in Mountain View's future. So thank you for your opportunity to comment.

[01:38:45] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Um, is Peter Katz? Um, asking, yeah. Peter Katz, you available? Welcome back.

[01:39:01] Peter Katz: Thank you very much. I do want to comment on 4.1. Is this the appropriate time to do that?

[01:39:10] Mayor Pat Showalter: No, we'll get that in a few minutes.

[01:39:13] Peter Katz: Okay, then I will pass and come back.

[01:39:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Great. Thank you. All right, so, um, uh, council member Hicks.

[01:39:22] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I will be moving the entire consent council with the exception of item 4.one, and we'll read the following items. Item 4.2, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, appointing Barbara Weissen Byer to the Board of Library Trustees, reappointing Hank Dempsey to the Environmental Planning Commission, reappointing Joan McDonald and Molly Smith, and appointing Elise Lester to the Human Relations Commission, reappointing Sandra Summer, to the Parks and Rec Commission, reappointing Terrence Barton and James Kuzmel, and appointing Serge Banc to the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee reappointing Pamela Baird and Jameel Sheikh and appointing Stephanie Lynn to the downtown committee, appointing Ndvana Nodiku, to the senior advisory committee, and reappointing Susie Merhar, and Regina Seikles, and appointing Joe Medwid, and Stephanie Spade, to the Vigil Arts Committee, to red entitle only for the reading wave. Also, item 4.3, adopt a resolution, of the city of Mountain View, amending the city's records, retention schedules, and rescinding resolution number 18803, to be read entitled only for further reading waived. Thank you very much.

[01:40:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: So, I don't see any names for questions or comments. So I think it's time to vote. So the remainder of the consent calendar passes unanimously. Now we will move back to item 4.one, and we'll have Lisa, Vice Mayor Mattachek, speak, and then we'll have public coming.

[01:41:04] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So, actually, I had a couple of questions before I get into this. And, um, I want to start with, um, on the page two of the staff report. It says, upon adoption of this amended city council policy, K2. City staff will work to bring establishing resolutions back to the council to accurately reflect the membership guidelines of each body, including those that would be amended under this new definition of committee. And I think, um, a lot of people have read that to mean that the definition that's proposed for committee would apply to all committees. Um, and, um, I guess I'd like clarification, um, on that, and what exactly the process would look like, and I don't know if that's a question for a CPP member, or for the city clerk.

[01:42:08] Unknown Speaker: I'll give it a first shot, and then I'll welcome the support from the city clerk. during the CPPC meeting in discussing how to address the challenge of permitting the type of membership criteria that we have enforced, notwithstanding a certain provision in the charter, what we learned was the policy should govern at the broadest level. And then each resolution establishing each appointed body would have more specific criteria for the membership, right? Number of seats, if we want to have a seat for a particular stakeholder group alternates, that kind of thing, that the policy itself should not be so precise as to stipulate specific membership criteria for specific committees, but each resolution is the more appropriate opportunity to say, in this case, only residents would be permitted. Or, in this case, residents, but maybe business owner representation, because we do value input from businesses in this context. So that's my understanding, and that's why staff will come back with clarifications, I think, in some cases, there may not be a resolution, so we have to create a resolution formally creating the body. But that gives us an opportunity to clarify the membership criteria and requirements for each specific body.

[01:43:34] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: So when the resolution comes back, What membership requirements will be in the draft?

[01:43:42] Unknown Speaker: Well, so there are, um, and the city clerk was kind enough. I don't know if this is easy to share with everybody, the existing, we have existing membership criteria. So, for instance, BPAC, Mountain View residents only. The downtown committee has is much more complex and has particular stakeholder groups represented, but there are also residency requirements for the community at large members.

[01:44:05] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: So, sorry, let me clarify. So will the resolution have, for each individual committee, whatever the current membership requirements are for them, as opposed to the definition of committee?

[01:44:18] Unknown Speaker: So that would have been what staff would do, is bring back what's currently on the books, and then it would be up to the council to determine at that time, whether they wanted to tinker with that at all. I know that we had spoken in our last meeting about bringing the senior advisory committee back to kind of change the structure of that. So, in an effort to clarify that not just the bodies that are being, um, maybe change tonight in their name. Not just those would be coming back as resolutions, but they would all be coming back for cleanup. And then at that time you could decide whether you had any changes you wanted to make based on, um, the fact that now there's this carve out for, um, committees.

[01:45:06] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Um, so tonight, it's, um, not being proposed that any of the membership requirements change. That would be when the resolutions come back. Okay. So whatever they are, is what they are, and they vary by body.

[01:45:26] Unknown Speaker: So, with one caveat that we would be legalizing the participation of the non resident business owner stakeholders on the downtown committee, who, by charter, currently cannot legally participate.

[01:45:39] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: So that would be the one thing that the policy would do immediately, right?

[01:45:44] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, and that wouldn't actually just be, um, the downtown committee, you have several bodies that have provisions for non-mountain view residents. But there are currently. No non-mountain V residents serving on those bodies.

[01:45:57] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Correct, but that would enable us to enact that provision. for future applicants.

[01:46:05] Unknown Speaker: And if I have that list if it would be helpful to read.

[01:46:09] Unknown Speaker: I think I have that list, but yeah, if you want to read it?

[01:46:11] Unknown Speaker: Sure. Okay. Um, so, uh, in the policy advisory committee, one member may be a non-resident, if they have demonstrated special interest or training in the performing arts, uh, with a senior advisory committee, a majority must be Mountain View residents, but a senior service provider may be a non-resident. Visual arts committee, one member who is a recognized specialist in one or more aspects of the creation of art, the judgment of the quality of art, or the placement of art may be a non resident, and everything else is not the residence only.

[01:46:43] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Sorry, and the first one was the performing arts, right? Not the policy.

[01:46:49] Unknown Speaker: It's okay. We've done too much policy tonight.

[01:46:51] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes. Thank you. Okay, so I had heard that the primary reason this was addressed by the CPPC was because of the challenges being faced with the downtown committee. Okay. So I did watch your meeting. And I was kind of surprised at how short the meeting was, and how there wasn't a lot of discussion about this. And so I guess I would have preferred, um, I guess more of an explanation of what was being proposed and what wasn't being proposed, um, because I think a lot of people have interpreted it differently. And it has created a lot of angst within the community. Um, I guess I still have some concerns because when the resolutions come back, um, there is the opportunity for all of those committees to have their membership changed. But that would be a vote of the entire council, um, to do that. Correct?

[01:47:59] Unknown Speaker: Yep.

[01:48:00] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: So, actually, um, while I do appreciate that we are addressing this, because I do think the, um, advising bodies. We were inconsistent in a lot of ways. And so it's always good to take a look at policies and clean them up, if they need to be. And as I said, there's been a lot of different interpretations of the policies. So I do appreciate that. But I do have a couple of concerns. And I think the biggest one is... having, uh, in the overarching definition of committee that, um, non residents of Mountain View could potentially be members of any committee. Now, I agree that for some, it could make sense. You know, I think in the past, we have had downtown committee members who are not residents of the city, and I think we have had some on other advisory bodies in the past, such as the performing art. And I think it makes sense when you have somebody that has particular expertise, that could potentially fill a gap, that exists, or that we need representation from, and to be on that committee and not be a Mountain View resident. But, you know, hopefully, they have a stake in the city. And I do believe business owners have a stake in our community. So, to me, that one does make sense. And I can also see where, you know, if we're lacking expertise, that someone who really wants to be on this could provide senior advisory committee, if they're service providers, that could make sense to me, Performing arts, that also could make sense to me. But some of the others, I kind of feel like there's all kinds of opportunity for people to provide input. They can come to a meeting and talk during public comment, period. They can email the council, they can ask to meet with the council. There are just all kinds of ways to share your thoughts without actually being on the committee. And so I'm not sure I want to completely open this up to all committees. by having this overarching definition that includes that.

[01:50:33] Unknown Speaker: Through the mayor, if I I don't want to dominate the conversation, but this was an issue that did come up. I can't recall if it was in the CPPC meeting, but I discussed it with the city clerk. We can specifically name the committees where stakeholder participation from non residents would be permitted. The downside is, if, for instance, the council were to create a future, like, the El Camino real precise plant task force, for instance, where I think we also had specific, you know, carve outs for stakeholders who were non residents who had some other interest, we would also have to go back and amend the policy to name that. And that's okay. It's an administrative burden, but I think the intent was if the council were to create another body, where that kind of stakeholdership would be valuable, we've just created another obstacle to doing that. So I did invite the city clerk. I don't know if you had a chance to do it to prepare some alternative language in the event. A majority of the council was not comfortable with the current language, where we would basically name the downtown committee specifically, but we would do so recognizing that if, you know, we needed to do a precise plan update or something where we wanted business representation or property and representation, we would have to go back and amend the policy also in order to explicitly list that committee, and then probably go back and amend it when we wanted to disband that committee. So I don't think we have those task forces very often. Um, yeah. So, I guess, while it might be another step, I would be more comfortable with that. And I think the three I mentioned, the downtown committee, the performing arts committee, and the senior advisory committee, would be the three that I would feel comfortable with. So I don't know how others feel about that.

[01:52:19] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: The other thing I want to mention before others talk is, um, the other concern I had is that we would change the HRC to a commission. And it's my understanding, I'm sorry, to a committee. Um, sorry. Oh, I'm doing it. Um, that one, it's my understanding, started out as a committee, and because, um, there is, whether or not this is true, the perception that a commission has, um, like greater significance, and a little bit more stature in the community, that, um, I wasn't on the council at the time, but they changed it to a commission. And so, given that I think that perception still exists out there. I'd feel more comfortable leaving that one as a commission. rather than changing it to a committee.

[01:53:07] Unknown Speaker: One last time, so that we can certainly do that. The downside is that non citizens who our residents would be denied the ability to participate. And historically, there have been some non citizen residents, they're not qualified electors, right? So that's the restriction in the charter. And so if we left it as a commission, the charter definition would prevail. And so residents who are not citizens, could not participate in the HRC. That's why that recommendation was forwarded.

[01:53:36] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: And can we not, when we do the updated resolution, that one's not part of the charter, right? Or is it?

[01:53:45] Unknown Speaker: It is not a charter created body, but it is bound to the provisions of the charter which requires a qualified elector.

[01:53:55] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. So I guess I'd like to hear what others think about that, but that was the other one where I felt a little bit uncomfortable changing. it to a committee. So if others want to weigh in, I'm love to hear your comments.

[01:54:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member, Abbe Koka.

[01:54:12] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. That was my question about the HRC. And, um, I do agree. I don't remember the HRC, but during my time. The youth advisory, now, committee used to be a group, and so we elevated it to a committee, and it was just the understanding that group committee commission was the hierarchy. And so that was my understanding with why the Human Relations Commission is a commission. But, um, I was going to say, I agree with the vice mayor, um, and I was going to suggest that we flip this definition of committee to say the opposite. So and say, to say, committees may, unless specified in the establishing resident, or committees shall, unless otherwise specified in the establishing resolution or ordinance, have members who are 18 years of age, or resident, Mountain View, and just leave it actually at just a resident of Mountain View. And, um, that way, the establishing resolutions would define the exceptions, such as age for the youth advisory committee and downtown and whatnot. So I guess I was just looking at how to simplify this and if we just leave it at that, then we can have the specific ones.

[01:55:44] Unknown Speaker: that again.

[01:55:45] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. So it would say committees shall, unless otherwise specified in the establishing resolution or ordinance, have members who are 18 years of age or older, and a resident of Mountain View, and just leave it at that. And that keeps it open to any resident of Mountain View. Um, And then there is the issue of employment, and I remember being on the CPPC and discussing this. I don't, yeah, I thought we had dealt with this, but I guess we hadn't. I personally, you know, having been a staff person, a legislative staff person, we have certain limitations, have had certain limitations. And I do think there is an inherent conflict in being a staff member and serving on a commission committee or board. I actually like what San Jose said, and there are questions, answers to the questions about how, you know, staff has the opportunity to provide comments or opinions. And so these commissions, advisory boards are really meant for residents who are not staffed to be able to have, say, or opinions. So I would, um, take out the, um, staff allowing staff to serve. I think, and yep, those were the items I had. And then in terms of, sorry, task forces, I guess I did have a question. Do we have in the definition, I'm sorry, I didn't pull up the whole policy, a definition of commissions. Because boards and commissions, I just follow the charter section 900 that describes that they have to be qualified electors. So that means that they would have to be over 18, mountain view residents and eligible to vote. I was thinking specifically for the HRC. Would we need to put something in the definition of commissions to say...

[01:57:59] Unknown Speaker: We couldn't change it because it's a charter section. So the charter rules in this in this case. We can't carve out something for a commission.

[01:58:11] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So how do these other cities do it? Because I, reading, they're probably not as restrictive in their charter language. Um, city of Cupertino housing commission. Um

[01:58:29] Unknown Speaker: Are these all in their charters?

[01:58:33] Unknown Speaker: I couldn't, I couldn't tell you that. But for us, boards and commissions are governed by the charter, which stipulates what you would have to be to be a member. So that's the reason why we're trying to carve out committees in order to give the city some flexibility.

[01:58:58] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Well, I appreciate the uh, comparison, the the rundown of all of the cities. And I would note, yes, that they most of them just say city residents and then members of bodies shall not be employees. So I would say we should be consistent with other cities in those regards. Thank you.

[01:59:20] Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, Council member Ramirez. Okay, vice mayor, Mattachek.

[01:59:29] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, um, thank you for bringing that up. I agree with your comments about that. I think sometimes it can get kind of uncomfortable if you have a city employee on a committee where, well, you might not be in the same department. You are kind of peers, within the city. And I think it's better if there's just a separation between these, as in San Jose. So I was wondering if we, um, tweak the definition of committee, should we specifically say in there, that you can't be a city employee. Um, and should we also say, um, that you may serve regardless of your immigration status.

[02:00:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, I would... I would like us not to say that. And, um, the reason I would like us not to say that is because, basically, um, we are entering a period of fear related to immigration status. And I think that it's better if we're just silent on it, if we just say it's a resident, and then we don't, we just don't bring up the subject, because we don't ask the, um, we don't ask anybody, uh, you know, you don't have to give your immigration status, to sign up for a rec class, or any of our services, right? So I don't think we want to start with this. So I'm fine with that. I just wanted to make sure people know that we don't look at that. Um, I think we'll just have to get the word out... Yeah. about it. I think we'll just have to get the word out another way. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, um... So, on to Council member Ramirez, do you want to speak again?

[02:01:25] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I had a question, so, to, um, Council member Abbe Koka's question about flipping the language. I want to make sure we're not still, the way I understood it is that the policy is sort of the, the, the, the baseline is sort of the, the floor, right? The floor has to be the lowest point, and then the resolutions would be more restrictive. So I guess a question for the city attorney or the city clerk, if it were reversed, where we said, you shall have these membership criteria, unless the so very, could be more restrictive, would that be okay? Or is there a reason why it has to be worded this way, where it's more accommodating or free, and then the resolutions are where you can be more restrictive?

[02:02:22] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: I think it would be okay if you want the other direction as well. This is going to be adopted by a resolution, and another resolution could provide more flexibility if this was more restrictive, right? And less otherwise provided by resolution. So you could flip it without a problem. So they're not, I understand what you mean about floor and ceiling, but because in the end, they'd probably both be ordinances or the body would be created, I mean, sorry, resolutions or the body would be created by ordinance, which would be more powerful than a resolution, I think you'd be okay if you flipped it.

[02:02:58] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. For whatever it's worth, I'm comfortable with the CPPC recommendation, I think there was a lot of thought put in by staff, but I could support the flipping language just to be more to be clear with the community that we're not. We're not saying we want non-residents to serve on any advisory body. I do think the language is sufficiently protective to say the resolution provides more strict membership criteria, but, you know, if my colleagues are supportive. I could support basically the recommendation with that flipped language, for lack of a better way of putting it.

[02:03:39] Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, Council member, uh, Ramos.

[02:03:45] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Quick question. So what have we fallen on for the HRC? Is it still a committee? Is still is it a commission? Because I really do want to have people serve on the HRC who are residents regardless of their immigration status. I think that's actually an important voice to the HRC. I feel bad that there was a hierarchy to some of our boards. Like, I get the concept behind it. Um, I don't mind calling it a committee. I served on a committee that requires electors, but I think that was just because when the residents did their ballot measure, they actually didn't know the difference of what these words could be. So I'm okay with that. I'm actually also okay with people who are uh, staff uh, serving on our boards and commissions. There, like, I don't expect, I don't expect city manager Canberra to serve on our B-Pack. Um, but like if you were essentially, uh, I'm trying to think about, there's no such thing as lower jobs, but like if you were an analyst in, um, I don't know, the finance department. If you want to serve on the performing arts committee, I don't see the conflict with that. I feel like, especially if they're a resident, because I don't think that you should give up your rights as a resident just because you work for our city. And it's not really a right to serve on a commission, but it's supposed to be the opportunity available to our residents. So I'm inclined to, like, I'm okay with significant guardrails on that. Um, but I would like that option to be available. We have so many people who work for our city that aren't in significant leadership. Um, So yeah.

[02:05:53] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, I'm going to take a turn. I really appreciate this conversation. I know I sat on the committee where we talked about the changes that needed to be made, and I sort of had in mind what, you know, that discussion when I read this, and it seemed to say what we talked about. And then there were all sorts of people who were upset about it, and I read it more carefully, and it was like, oh, I understand why they're confused. So I like, I would suggest that we do... Well, I'm gonna be... sexually, Jess, we try three things. One, Margaret's flipped language. Council member Abby Kogis flip language. That's a great suggestion. I put together some alternative language, and it's kind of similar. I also agree that there are times when it's okay for staff. to be part of a Board of Commission if they are a resident. And I think this language that's here, is very good. And then the other one is, I would also agree with the idea that we just go ahead and change the human relations commission to a committee, for the reason that it might be good to have people who aren't just electors serve on that. Because we, you know, when you think of it, 40% of Santa Clara County was born outside of this country, that we have a lot of people from other places that live here, and they're very, many of them are very active members of our community, which is, you know, which is a service. It's great. So we don't want to, I don't want to see them excluded. So I would propose that those three things. The mayor doesn't usually make emotion. but nobody else is making emotion, or somebody else want to make an emotion? Council member X.

[02:07:52] Unknown Speaker: Well, I can make a motion to include those three items. I haven't memorized the gist of them, but not the words. So, I would amend the, uh, 4.1, item 4.1, uh, include the flipped language of council member, that council member, Abbe Koga, suggested, um, that the, it would be human relations committee, not commission, and... I am having trouble reading your number two. Oh, so, uh... So this is, well, where is that? Okay, a resident of Mountain View, members may include individuals employed by the city of Mountain View, if there's no conflict between duties, functions, or responsibilities of the committee and the role and duties of the city employment position. This definition does not apply to the rental housing committee created by City Charter 1709. So it would be those three points. That's my mission.

[02:09:13] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, please. Thank you. Thank you. Council America.

[02:09:17] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So, um, thank you, Mayor. So I'm seeking a little bit of clarity when we're just, uh, saying flipping language and just trying to, um, understand the implications of what language flipping means. Um, so, you know, as I read the staff report tonight, it sounded like there were 2 things. One of them was trying to create kind of this something overarching and then trying to bring in line 2 of our bodies as committees. So I saw it as 2 different things. Now we're talking about three. So I just want to, before we go forward, I just want to be crystal clear, particular, since we received so much input from the community, and people are saying that they were confused. So I just, I'd like it to be very clear what we're doing tonight. So I'm not sure who, um, from staff might be able to clarify the implications of, quote, unquote, flipping language. I don't quite. What is that language to be flipped? Clerk, do you have that down? Jennifer, do you?

[02:10:27] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: So, the way I understood it. And so you can correct me if I'm wrong, but you would be revising it to say, Committees, shall not, unless otherwise specified in the establishing resolution or ordinance, have members under the age of 18, who are not residents of Mountain View, and who are not citizens, United States citizens. So

[02:10:55] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: that's the way I'm understanding it. You're saying they shall not, unless otherwise. So they cannot, they should.

[02:11:03] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Or you could say they shall be over 18 years of age, and they shall be Mountain View residents, so you could get rid of the negative.

[02:11:13] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. But there's still the, and not a United States citizen.

[02:11:19] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: No, let's get rid of that. That all out. That's simplified.

[02:11:22] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So we're crossing that out. Okay, so just for clarity, so we're on page two of the staff report, so it would just be committee shall. Otherwise, unless otherwise specified. So then it's 18 and not a resident, after Mountain View, everything else is deleted, until you get to the bottom, where it's... And then members may... yeah I see. Okay.

[02:11:49] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Would it be helpful if I read it in?

[02:11:51] Unknown Speaker: Yes. For everyone?

[02:11:54] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Okay. So this is what I, what I took down was the definition of committee would be advisory or decision making bodies created by ordinance or resolution of the council, pursuant to the council's general and broad legislative power outside of city charter section 900 committee shall, unless otherwise specified in the establishing resolution or ordinance, have members who are 18 years of age or older, and a resident of Mountain View. Members may include individuals employed by the city of Mountain View, if there is no conflict between the duties, functions, or responsibilities of the committee, and the rules and duties of the city employment position. This definition does not apply to the rental housing committee created by city charter section 1709. That sounds right to me, is that?

[02:12:48] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. And then the motion on the floor. So I'm just still trying to clarify what we're going to be voting on.

[02:12:54] City Clerk Heather Glaser: And then the other part of the motion on the floor is in accordance with the staff recommendation of moving the human relations commission and the tennis advisory board 2 committees, that is part of the motion.

[02:13:08] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, and then there was a third component.

[02:13:11] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No.

[02:13:12] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Thank you. Thanks for clarifying that. Vice Mayor Matachek?

[02:13:19] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: One of the other things we, uh, that was brought up was, we specifically list the 3 committees, that, um, this applies to, and that was the downtown committee, the performing arts committee, and what was the 3rd senior?

[02:13:39] Unknown Speaker: The senior advisory committee.

[02:13:41] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: What happened to that discussion?

[02:13:43] Unknown Speaker: Would you like me to add that as a friendly?

[02:13:46] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: I would like that as a payment.

[02:13:47] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Oh... Visual art is on... Well it's added as... Apparently.

[02:13:52] Unknown Speaker: So, do you want... The question? No, it would be, um, performing arts. Downtown. And senior advice.

[02:14:00] Unknown Speaker: Senior and youth. Youth? The youth advisory committee.

[02:14:04] Unknown Speaker: Margaret just said that... They're under 18.

[02:14:07] Unknown Speaker: Okay, youth advisory. To add those four.

[02:14:10] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. I would accept that friendly amendment. And how would that be worded, I guess? Lucas is the one who, sorry, Council member Ramirez? You were... You said you had alternative language, so...

[02:14:23] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I had requested the... I don't know if you had a chance to do it, but I had anticipating that there might be a discussion about the non resident component of the recommendation. I asked if there could be alternative language related to the, for lack of a better term, white listing of committees where non-residents could be permitted, right? So that would basically just be the downtown committee, in my initial thinking, but there are a couple of others. So it would be, we want to be careful not to conflate multiple things, right? So for non-resident participation, we would say we would include downtown committee, senior advisory committee, and performing arts committee. And I guess, did we have to, um, define that in greater detail to say, like, how many people or...?

[02:15:22] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: That would all be in the enabling resolution.

[02:15:24] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Okay. So, um, I would like that as a friendly amount. Okay, and we're adding the youth advisory committee, also committee, or... Now I'm getting confused.

[02:15:38] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Right now, the youth advisory committee only permits Mountain Bee residents, right? So the white list would be... So, we would be allowing non residents on the youth advisory committee, if they were amended, if that committee were included in this, the white listing. So, but she's wanting it for under 18. But that's addressed in the enabling...

[02:15:59] Unknown Speaker: So we don't need it here. So only those 3 for clarity.

[02:16:02] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Right. The protection here is we don't want non-residents on other bodies, even buddies that could be created by the council, unless they go back and amend the policy, to be very clear. So we're making it more difficult and clearer.

[02:16:17] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. So it's the 3 committees, which is the downtown committee, the senior advisory committee, and, uh, Performing Arts Committee.

[02:16:31] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Oh, I see a few more hands. Are they still... Councilman Robbie Koger, do you want to speak again?

[02:16:45] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh, thank you, Mary. Yes, so I appreciate all of the changes, and I appreciate... the language is clearer. I guess I was trying to figure out how to keep the Human Relations Commission a commission, but allow for, um, more participation of, regardless of status. Sounds like we can't do that right now. So, yeah, so that one I'll have to forego. But again, I still believe that um, The employee one is tricky. I understand, and I know that. But there is, you know, there's reality and perception, and I think we all know this as council members too, but what we say, we have to be very careful about what we say as individually, our personal opinions versus what we say on behalf of the city. And there's still always this perception that we are representing the city. And that's really my concern with having employees serving on advisory bodies. I appreciate there's a free speech, you know, freedom of speech, but I really personally believe that in our roles, there is this extra layer that we have to be mindful of. And so for that reason, I will not be able to support this motion. Thank you.

[02:18:07] Mayor Pat Showalter: I need a little help with the processing here. Do we need to have public comment before we vote? We do, don't we? Okay, and we, I don't see anybody. Is there anybody in the chamber who wants to speak on item 4.one? For public comment? I don't see anyone, but I do see someone, uh, three people on, um, uh, on Zoom. So we'll go with Peter Katz first.

[02:18:34] Mayor Pat Showalter: Welcome back, Peter.

[02:18:36] Peter Katz: Thank you, mayor. Thank you, mayor, and esteemed members of the council, Peter Cat, CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, and also representing the Downtown Business Association, the DBA. Regarding amending City County, uh, city council policy, K2 to allow non-residents to serve on council advisory bodies. I'm very respectful, what Vice Mayor Matterchech was saying about overarching definitions. Please note that my comments are directly specific to the downtown committee, and also speak directly about non resident business owner participation. The downtown committee's stated purpose is to promote the vitality of downtown Mountain View. Residents and businesses together shape the character of our downtown and few what's vibrancy. They are inextricably connected. You cannot have one without the other. Our businesses reflect and shape our city and our lifestyle. When it comes to matters concerning downtown, and especially such an important advisory bodies, the DTC, the businesses need to be actively engaged, to be able to voice their needs, concerns, observations and suggestions, just as openly and constructively, as do our downtown residents. All have unique and valuable perspectives, and all share in the fervent desire to keep our downtown, the vibrant jewel of our community. For that very reason, the downtown committee bylaws clearly state, in Article 4, Section 1, that as its membership, in addition to resonance, needs to include property owners, businesses, as well as the chamber, entities that all have significant impact on downtown. And nowhere in the bylaws does it make the distinction that any of the owners or organizations need to be residents, which only makes sense. Many of our beloved storefronts are operated by non residents. Yet they are downtown's heartbeat, dedicated to the community, shapers of the community, and its most fervent supporters. Without them, our downtown would lose its soul. I'm not quite sure where we landed with all the language changes tonight, but we urge the council to modify K2, if, or as needed, to ensure that the downtown committee continues to include representatives from our local businesses, regardless of residency, whether this happens as part of the broader rate definition, or as a specific exception. Thank you.

[02:21:02] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Next is Louise Katz.

[02:21:13] Mayor Pat Showalter: Hello? Hi, Louise, are you there?

[02:21:15] Louise Katz: Yes, can you hear me?

[02:21:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, yes.

[02:21:17] Louise Katz: Okay, thank you. Yes, I just wanted to make a point, and again, the free speech issue about having city staff on any sort of commission or committee. Um, certainly sounds good, but I can't understand how there would be an actual protocol for figuring out what is a conflict of interest. Who would sort of ring the bell? I think, as you know, the FPPC Fair Political Practices Commission, basically works on this issue full time. And they have written criteria, they have protocols for advisory letters and all sorts of things. So, I think before you put in place, the idea that someone should not be involved if there is a conflict of interest. You need to be able to define it. So for example, can it be an issue by issue? Discussion and who decides that the person shouldn't participate, or should it be a basic when they sign on? What is your job and what commission or committee are you on that might have end up with a conflict? So also the concept of a conflict of interest is that there's even an appearance. Of conflict of interest doesn't have to be proven. So anyways, I think it's a wonderful, um, effort that you're making, but I think without having clear criteria and for the other members of the various committees to figure out how to handle this, um, it could make for a very less than collegial environment for everybody. Thank you.

[02:22:46] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you for your comments. Okay, now we have Robert Cox. Robert, are you available?

[02:22:53] Robert Cox: Yes, I'm here. You can hear me?

[02:22:55] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, we can. Okay.

[02:22:57] Robert Cox: Thanks for the opportunity to talk to the council about this item of all the issues that come before the council this year. It's aroused the most passion generated the most signatures throughout the Liverpool Mountain View steering committee. Uh, Liberal Mountain View strongly believes that in general positions for commissions board and committees should come from Mountain View residents. We do recognize that some RHC positions are by the city charter available to landlords, who can live outside Mountain View. And we also understand that there are certain cases, as was brought up today on the PAC, DTC, SAC, and YAC. Where it's useful to have people with a particular expertise. Uh, you know, involved and members of these committees. But in general, we would like, we want the vanilla thing to be that the people who serve on the committees to be um, Mountain View residents. And that's because residents have a stake in the outcome of council decisions, and non-residents are also always welcome to express their opinions to the council in person or in writing, so they do have an opportunity to comment. Um, I'm just going to relate a story that when I was 1st selected to the board of the old Mountain View neighborhood association, a paid professional lobbyist who was not a resident of Mountain View, requested I get together with him over coffee. He presented his plans for Mountain View to me and I asked, will you also be putting together similar plans for other cities in the Bay Area. He answered, no, we believe that only Mountain View will be willing to act on plans. Recommended by a group outside their city. Since then, I've always been interested in whether the input I'm receiving is from a Mountain View resident or not. So thank you all. I think, you know, in terms of Mountain View resident participation. After the discussion, we've had the night of the council's land in the right place. So, but I appreciate that there was this discussion and everything uh, got cleared up.

[02:25:05] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Robert, and the next speaker is Hal Al Shawani. Hala, are you available? Ella?

[02:25:16] Hala: Uh, yes, yes. can hear you now. Mayor.

[02:25:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh, great. Thank you.

[02:25:20] Hala: Good evening, Mayor, city council, city staff. Um, yeah, thank you for all the clarifications that um, and the discussions that uh, everyone contributed to. I would like to also emphasize that it is vital that the members of all the boards commissions, well, or most of the boards and commissions and committees be residents of Mountain View. Um, it seems to be, you know, that's really the democratic way for us to be represented for our, uh, for our voices, our interests, our uh, benefit, uh, should be, should be within the residence. I understand the exceptions that uh, that the council discussed and the staff represented, uh, and I'm okay with that. But I would also like to bring up the topic of switching the human relation commission to a committee. I actually served on the Human Relations Commission back, um, I think it was 2004, 2005. And I agree with council member Margaret Abby Koga that, um, leaving it as a commission, I think it would be, um, much better for the community, it would serve the community, um, in a better capacity, and I would urge you to keep the human relation, uh, commission as a commission. Um, I would also would like to say that not having staff, uh, members, uh, as, as members on the, um, on these boards and committees and commissions, because it's really, they're really, therefore, mostly to hear the voices of the community. Uh, the concerns. Um, uh, I think it would, it would be better to leave, to leave that as it is. Um, um, and just let the community members become uh, become the uh, the members of those bodies. Thank you very much.

[02:27:25] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Looks like we have... One more speaker, Maureen Blando. Marine, are you available?

[02:27:35] Maureen Blando: Yes, thank you very much. Good evening to the city council and the city staff. I appreciate. I think it's been a very useful meeting, and my concern was, and I won't belabor it, that there should be the requirement that people be Mountain View residents on the committees. I think that point has ended up in a good place, so thank you for that. Um, But I do agree with several of the people who have already spoken that it would be best not to have city employees. on the committees, they can participate in other ways, um, or tighten that language up tremendously, but I think the safest thing to do is not have city employees on the committees. And just anecdotally, I want to say, what a great evening to have joined, a session like this with the, um, acknowledgment of Joe Samidian, you know, an extraordinary public servant.

[02:28:35] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so I'm bringing it back. Do you want to speak again?

[02:28:46] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Mayor, I actually wanted to ask the city manager if she could comment on the piece about staff. eligibility.

[02:28:57] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, council member Abbe Koga. So, It would not be my recommendation to include staff as part of the, um, advisory boards or commissions, uh, staff are paid. Staff are supposed to be neutral in our assessment of policy issues, whether that is for advisory boards or commissions or certainly to the city council. I think having staff advise other staff on potential policy positions as part of advisory bodies or commissions is certainly problematic, definitely awkward. and presents potential conflict of interest issues. There's probably a variety of other potential things that could arise related to working hours, whether employees are represented, potential subordinates, relationships, depending on the board that they serve on and the staff that are serving on that committee. It's generally a best practice that employees wouldn't serve on advisory boards or commissions, which is why you don't see it in other cities. Um, I did see what the city of San Jose notes and their rules in that, um, City boards and commissions are intended to provide the council with the perspective different and additional to that provided by staff and other persons retained to provide that advice. So legal advice or consultants, um, unless particular boards or commissions are required to have staff appointed to those boards. So I think that kind of captures another reason why it's not really a best practice for staff to serve on wards and commissions. And again, staff are paid and advisory board members and commissions are not. So, um, it would like, again, it would not be my recommendation. I do see value and merit to what is being discussed this evening, but it would not be my recommendation.

[02:31:17] Mayor Pat Showalter: I'm going to take another turn here. I was only able to start my public service because I actually, I was an employee of the U.S. Geological survey, and I wanted to serve on the Environmental Planning Commission, and as under the Hatch Act, which is a U.S. Act, I had to get permission to do that. And initially, I was denied permission. They said that it would be a conflict of interest, that people would assume that, I mean, I was a very lowly USGS employee, that that that would mean that what I was saying was a reflection of what the U.S. Geological Survey was saying, and not, um, just as a resident in Mountain View. And I appealed that, because I said that I, you know, I didn't think that I thought, given that my place, my position in the organization, and the work that I would be doing on the planning commission, it really, you know, it wasn't a reasonable thing. And when they looked at it again, they said yes, you're right. It wasn't a reasonable requirement. So I have sort of a personal feeling about this, that as an American, we have a right to be civically engaged. And if you're a federal employee, you don't. You get to vote, but that's how you're serving your country, but that's all. But that's not the case for city, county workers. There is not a state, uh, you know, there is an estate law that says, people who are, um, employees of cities can't serve, or counties can't serve in other ways. And I think that's a good thing, because there are a lot of employees for cities and counties, and they have a lot of expertise that's good to share for their community. So, I'm going to go forward with this, and that's, you know, I really wanted to share my story. Um, so are we ready to take, uh, Council member Kameh?

[02:33:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I was just gonna share that, I'm not gonna be able to support the motion that was presented. I appreciate Council member, Abbe Koga, asking the question and the city manager's response. So just prior to the vote, I just wanted people to know that I will not be able to support it. Thank you.

[02:33:48] Mayor Pat Showalter: Uh, Council member Ramos.

[02:33:52] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Um... I actually feel strongly about allowing... Mountain View is a community for all. And if you're a resident of Mountain View, I feel like it, even if you, um, work trying to find right roads. If you're a resident of Palo Alto and work for our city, you can serve on Palo Altos, whatever bodies they have. I feel like the incentives get really messed up at that point where we're saying, like, hey, if you're staff, we don't want you to live in our city. So if you want to actually grow in civic engagement. I feel like that's counterproductive. Also, I am glad, I don't think we are getting too much pushback on the moving of the HRC to being a commission instead of a committee because, um, If you're a mountain view resident, your input is super valuable to us, regardless of your immigration status. I think that's something I think all of us actually agree on. I am curious as the, um, I don't know if this is gonna end up hurting or helping. But if we bifurcate the, nope, you don't want to do that. Okay, let's not do that. And then we will we will deal with it as we go through.

[02:35:18] Mayor Pat Showalter: Right. Vice mayor Mata check.

[02:35:23] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um, so, um, I appreciate the city manager sharing her perspective on this. I also have concerns about this, as I mentioned before. But I think it's a little bit different than what you mentioned. So this isn't two different jurisdictions. We're talking about within the same jurisdiction, as opposed to two different ones. And I am wondering if the maker of the motion would consider changing the motion.

[02:35:53] Unknown Speaker: So, I think we should just put it through and see, who will vote for there are other cities that do it this way, in terms of employees. So if we don't get four votes, then we can make a different motion.

[02:36:05] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Well, then I'll make a substitute motion, um, to, uh, remove, uh, that portion of the motion, so we would prohibit city employees, um, from participating in, um, the advisory bodies.

[02:36:20] Mayor Pat Showalter: We haven't done that in a while. I knew it could happen. Can we vote, please? On the substitute motion?

[02:36:35] Mayor Pat Showalter: Is there a second?

[02:36:37] Unknown Speaker: You.

[02:36:55] Mayor Pat Showalter: Substitute motion did not pass.

[02:36:58] Mayor Pat Showalter: So let's go back to the motion that we had before and vote on that. Yes. Everybody clear on what we're voting on now? Very good. All right, let's vote.

[02:37:23] City Clerk Heather Glaser: That motion passes 4 to 3. Well, this was a very, very interesting conversation, and I think the longest item we've ever talked on the consent calendar, so that's some sort of, but it was a really good, good discussion. So I bring us now to item five, oral communications from the public. This is a portion of the meeting that's reserved for people who want to speak about something that isn't on tonight's agenda. So speakers are allowed to speak on any topic within the city council subject matter jurisdiction for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on non agenda items. If you would like to speak on this item, or the next item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Would any member of the public joining us, is there any member in the chambers who would like to speak? All right, seeing none will go to the virtual members who, I think, are, uh, Mr. Robert Cox. Robert, are you still available?

[02:38:41] Robert Cox: Sorry, I forgot to lower my hand.

[02:38:44] Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh, okay. How about Luis Katz? Do you want to speak on, um, oral communications, or is this left over from the previous... item? Ms. Katz? I'm assuming that this was just left over. Okay. All right. So that brings us to items six. Public hearings. The first one is 6.1, 675 to 685 East Middlefield Road, mixed public mixed use project. Would any council member like to make a disclosure? Uh, Vice Mayor Matachek.

[02:39:32] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I would like to disclose that I met with the applement applicant a couple of times, and I also have spoken with residents in the area. Thank you.

[02:39:43] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Ramirez.

[02:39:44] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I will also disclose that I had an opportunity to meet with the applicant.

[02:39:50] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Abbe Koka.

[02:39:51] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. I've also met with the applicant and visited the site.

[02:39:58] Mayor Pat Showalter: Oops, Council member Hicks.

[02:39:59] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I met with the applicant and visited the site as well.

[02:40:03] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Kameh.

[02:40:05] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I met with the applicant and went to the site things.

[02:40:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Ramos.

[02:40:11] Councilmember Emily Ramos: The applicant reached out, but I forgot to follow up. So we're moving forward.

[02:40:17] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. I also met with the applicant and visited the site. So with that, I'll bring it back to the dais, and the deputy zoning administrator, Rebecca Shapiro, and senior planner Philip Brennan, will present the item. If you would like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Thank you.

[02:40:47] Deputy Zoning Administrator Rebecca Shapiro: Thank you, Mayor, Vice mayor and council members. As noted, I'm Deputy Center Administrator, Rebecca Shapiro. I will be presenting the 675 to 685 East Middlefield project to you tonight. I'm joined on the Dias by Philip Brennan, the project planner. This project is located on an approximately 10.6 acre site in the East Wisman Precise Plans mixed-use character area and high-intensity sub area. The site is surrounded by office and research and development uses to the north and west and the Ravella multifamily residential development, roughly to the south. To the sides of the property are the VTA light rail tracks, Ferguson Drive, and State Route 237, and the property is located within one half mile of the Middlefield rail station. This project would replace the existing two-story office R&D buildings, surface parking and associated site improvements. The requests before you tonight includes planned community and development review permits, a heritage tree removal permit to remove 40 heritage trees, and investing tentative map to subdivide the land in the 5 new parcels, all of which would allow for construction of the project, which features a 275,000 square foot office building, a standalone office parking garage, and 3 residential buildings, comprising 836 units, which include 150 affordable units, provided via an alternative mitigation plan. The project also includes an over one half acre privately owned, publicly accessible OPA, as we call it, park space, which aligns with the precise plans open space plan, which calls for a mini park in this part of the precise plan area. The site is bisected by an L shaped on-site street, which connects between East Middlefield Road and Ferguson Drive, and also provides access to all of the projects on-site parking resources. This street also serves to delineate the office and residential portions of the development. The proposed office building, the Popa Park, and a portion of the market rate north building, front on East Middlefield Road, while another portion of the market rate north building and portions of the Market Race South building, front on Ferguson Drive, the BMR building, and office parking garage, or in the site interior. And the balance of the project area includes multimodal circulation and linear open spaces providing for off street and on street pedestrian and bicycle circulation, as well as passive recreation space, all of which are designed to reflect the applicant's landscape forward garden district concept. Staff has reviewed this project for conformity with applicable city codes and regulations. In terms of zoning regulations. Staff found that the project supports the general plan's vision for a mix of uses in the East Bosman area, including office, space, neighborhood serving commercial and multifamily residential uses. And staff found that this project also aligns with the precise plans, land use, policies and programs, such as the jobs housing linkage program and the bonus FAR program, the project complies with applicable, precise plan development standards, pursuant to council approval of a limited number of allowed design exceptions, which are discussed in more detail within the staff report. The precise plan provides for 2 tiers of permitted residential and non-residential development with bonus FAR projects allowed higher FAR and height in exchange for compliance with specific bonus FAR requirements. So this proposed project complies with these requirements, and most notably, that includes cumulative provision of more than $6000000 in combined community benefit contributions, and substantially exceeding the number of residential units required to allow the proposed non-residential project area. The proposed building architecture is intended to complement the applicant's garden district concept with all of the buildings using more earthy tones and textures deployed to try to achieve both a varied but cohesive design. Key features of the residential buildings include ground floor stoops, balconies and upper floor stepbacks, while the office building is distinguished by its expression of its mass timber structure, as well as large decks at the key corner. The office garage features draping cane mail mesh panels, and integrated landscaping on a steel cable system, which are intended to create a dynamic and living screen on the structure. The project design also includes a comprehensive landscape program with over 17,000 new understory plants, more than half of which are California native species. These planting areas are intended to serve a variety of purposes, including softening the appearance of the planned development, greening the raised courtyard areas, and enhancing the pedestrian environment and keeping, again, with the applicants' plans, garden district design strategy. And in total, approximately 86% of the landscaping will consist of drought tolerant, low water using species. The project site contains 241 existing trees, which includes 47 heritage trees. These existing trees are largely comprised of mature parking lot landscaping. In total, 234 trees are proposed for removal, including 40 heritage trees. And seven heritage trees are proposed for preservation. The applicant worked extensively with planning, public works, and urban forestry division staff to assess tree health, to explore preservation options, including transplantation. And unfortunately due to the extensive redevelopment, few areas allowed for tree retention without conflicting with project improvements, with roughly half of the tree is conflicting with the proposed residential buildings. Given the extent of these conflicts, focused at a staff level, especially was placed on studying potential preservation of 18 trees on the site's perimeter along East Minofield Road and a portion of Ferguson Drive, where this project would be constructing off-site street improvements. After extensive analysis, Steph has recommended, the applicant proposal, which is to implement the East Westman precise plan, street design standards, which include wider detached sidewalks, those proposed improvements would result in removal of several of those existing 18 trees, the 3 trees can be preserved. And ultimately what staff found is that even reconstructing the existing condition along those roadways with necessary ADA improvements would have a high likelihood of ultimately requiring a similar number of tree removals, if not immediately, then not too far afterwards. The project proposes 346 new tree plantings, including approximately 100 California native trees. In summary, the proposed heritage tree removals meet the city's required findings for removal, and the planting plan exceeds the typical 2 to one heritage tree replacement ratio. It's anticipated that the project would match the existing tree canopy within 5 to 10 years, and ultimately nearly double the existing tree canopy at full maturity around 20 years. The project site is located within one half mile of a major transit stop and is therefore subject to Assembly Bill 2097, which limits the city's ability to impose minimum parking requirements on the project. With that said, the application includes voluntary provision of just under 1500 structured parking spaces for office and residential use, along with 21 surface spaces along the on-site roadway. The applicant will also comply with applicable loading ADA and electric vehicle parking standards. And the project does exceed some of the minimum parking requirements for bicycles. In addition to providing bicycle supporting infrastructure, like unisex showers in the office building and 2 bike fix it stations in publicly accessible locations. The review process for this project included technical and environmental analyses, an initial study of environmental significance, or environmental checklists, was prepared to evaluate any potential environmental impacts from this project. The checklist found that with implementation of the East Wisman precise plan, standards, and guidelines, city standard conditions of approval, state regulations, and mitigation measures that were already identified and applicable from the East Wisman precise plan, EIR, that the proposed project would not result in any new or substantially worsened environmental impacts beyond those that had been previously identified in the precise plan EIR, and that no further environmental documentation was necessary. An MTA or multimodal transportation analysis was also prepared to evaluate potential transportation effects of the project. And that analysis was in context both through on-site operations as well as surrounding multimodal transportation system conditions. The MTA did ultimately recommend some transportation improvements that the project will implement. The city's BMR program requires qualifying rental housing projects to provide at least 15% of the units as on-site BMR units that are integrated into the market rate buildings. However, developers can request to meet their BMR obligations through an alternative mitigation plan, which is subject to city council approval. The applicant, in this case, seeks to use this provision to deliver their proposed affordable units offsite in a standalone, below market rate building, rather than onsite within the market rate buildings of the project. This is summarized on screen and discussed in detail within the staff report. In order to achieve the equivalent to the required 168 affordable units for an offsite delivery project, the proposal currently includes 150 affordable units in this BMR building, as well as a $12000000 supplemental BMR payment. The description on the screen represents, the applicant's proposal at the time of the EPC hearing with some red line information to describe some of the changes that have been made since then. Prior to the EPC hearing, housing staff reviewed the applicant's proposal and found that it met the location and suitability standards for an offsite delivery project, but did not comply with the number of units and timing of delivery requirements for such a proposal. And the conditions of approval presented to EPC, recommended by APC, and ultimately posted ahead of time for this hearing reflect that previous proposal. But since the EPC hearing, the applicant has made some updates to their proposal and informed staff, for instance, that they will no longer be requesting that $12 million supplemental payment be earmarked for this project. And they've also updated their proposal for the deferred timing on delivery of the offset units and supplemental funding, which I'll describe in more detail shortly. Members of the public so far, I've had a chance to be introduced to the project and share public comments at 3 city meetings prior to the recent EPC hearing. The applicant held in a neighborhood meeting on the project at the site in February of 2023, which was attended by 9 people. The application team provided a presentation to attendees, and received comments and questions regarding anticipated size of trees to be planted, number of units and parking spaces in the project, whether there was an opportunity for a grocery store, as well as questions around demands for housing in the area. The applicant also worked with staff to refine the design at 2 design review consultation meetings, where members of the public voiced support for affordable housing, but concern with separating it from the market rate development. attendees urge tree preservation, but also express appreciation regarding the increase to the size of the POPA space, along with other design input. When the APC reviewed this project on November 20th, public comment touched on similar topics to these prior city meetings, as well as new topics, such as concern about the proximity of the project driveway to the adjacent Rivella apartments driveway on Ferguson Drive, Dark Sky practices, concern and support as well for the public open space proposal, and support for the overall project, but concern with limited BMR resident parking in the project and suggestion that access to on-site amenities be extended to all tenants. Staff also has received several written comments since the EPC meeting with recent comments largely expressing concern about the adequacy of the public open space proposal. The EPC deliberations included particular attention to the applicant's alternative mitigation plan and the standalone BMR building proposal. Commissioners were largely complementary of the project design and landscape strategy, but concerned about key aspects of the alternative mitigation plan and BMR building amenities. EPC weighed the pros and cons of the applicant's alternative mitigation proposal, as well as the pros and cons of the city's 15% inclusionary BMR requirement, and ultimately recommended to the city council, that council conditionally approved the project, with the alternative mitigation plan and staff recommended draft conditions of approval. EPC also requested that staff and the applicant consider ways to address specific EPC concerns and ideas, which included the possibility of shared parking access for BMR residence in the office parking garage, providing BMR resident access to market rate common amenities, and studying an escalation factor on the $12 million supplemental BMR funding. given changes that Prometheus had requested to the recommended conditions of approval if council were to be interested in supporting their request. In recent discussions with staff, the applicant has continued to highlight their need for alternative timing on delivery of the standalone building, BMR building and the associated payment of the supplemental BMR funding. They've explained that they anticipate that the timeline for identifying an affordable housing partner, financing and starting construction of the BMR building, is likely to be longer than the timeline for beginning the market rate portion of the development. Prometheus is agreeable or express the staff that they were agreeable to the EPC direction to study an escalation factor, to ensure that the $12000000 supplemental funding payment does not depreciate as a result of any allowed deferral of the provision. And specifically, Prometheus has requested that the city consider approving their project with their proposed deferred timing for the BMR building delivery and supplemental funding payment with the following revised provisions specifically associated with the deferred payment. They propose that the payment deferral beef are no longer than the lesser of 30 months following the 1st building permit issuance for, uh, the project or certificate of occupancy for the 1st market rate building. Additionally, they propose that any deferral of the supplemental BMR payment results in an annual escalation factor being applied to the $12 million amount, which would be tied to the engineering news record construction cost index, starting one year from the issuance of the 1st project building permit. If council wishes to support this proposal, modified conditions of approval would be needed for conditions of approval numbers 110 and 111, and that would need to be made part of the council action. Additionally, since the EPC meeting, the applicant has confirmed that they and their office partner are agreeable to exploring the possibility of a shared parking agreement, allowing BMR building residence to park in the office garage after normal business hours. Their approach to satisfying this EPC request includes an identified timeline and analysis necessary to determine the viability of this shared parking agreement once office tenancy is in place. And if supported by council, staff would recommend that this additional language be added to existing draft condition of approval, number 28. The applicant has also evaluated EPC's requests to provide shared access to market rate building, common amenities, but has indicated to staff that it is not feasible. This largely brings us to the end of the staff presentation. As I noted earlier, the EPC recommendation, which is reflected in the council packet and shown here, was based on prior versions of the applicant's alternative mitigation plan and recommended draft conditions of approval presented at EPC. And since EPC city staff has been in discussion with the applicant regarding the additional EPC guidance on shared parking and the applicant's alternative mitigation plan. So what I have here on this last slide is a highlight of revisions to certain draft conditions of approval for council consideration, which would be needed, would need to be included in any council motion on this project. This includes 3 revised conditions of approval that in draft form, are connected to prior EPC guidance. Again, that's condition of approval, number 28, which could see potential modifications to address the applicant's supported provision for potential shared parking, for BMR residents in the office garage, and potential modifications to project conditions of approval, numbers, 110, and 111, which would update the BMR conditions to reflect EPC input on an escalation factor if council supports the applicant's request for deferred timing on delivery of the BMR building and supplemental BMR funding. Additionally. New information has come to light, which has resulted in staff recommended modifications to project condition of approval, number 193, and map condition of approval, number 20, which would permit the applicant to request a recalculation of the parkland dedication fees applicable to the project based on any update to or replacement of the fee ordinance. And I have slides with texts of these potential revisions to the project conditions of approval should council wish to deliberate on those items and or include them in your council motion. This concludes my presentation. City staff, city consultants, and the applicant team are available for questions, and the applicant also has a presentation for you tonight. So thank you.

[03:00:47] Mayor Pat Showalter: Usually we go forward with a presentation from the applicant, and then we'll have council questions after that. So, um, applicant, would you like to make your presidentation? Welcome.

[03:01:16] Don Peterson (Applicant, Prometheus): We have the microphone turned on. Good. Yep. Thank you. Uh, good evening, Mayor, uh, show Walter, uh, Vice Mayor Manachek, city council members. I'm Don Peterson. Very pleased to be with you here tonight. I represent Prometheus, and will be leading the project team here this evening. As you know, Prometheus is an active real estate owner, investor, and developer. Our primary focus with respected development has been and continues to be housing. And more specifically rental housing. Prometheus is a family owned private company. We've been around for over 50 years, and we're a long term holder of our properties. We keep what we build and develop for the long term, meaning we continue to manage and remain vested stakeholders within the community. We're locally based, with headquarters nearby in San Mateo. We have a long relationship with the city of Mountain View. We've been active here locally for many years, with housing developments sprinkled throughout the city. Recent developments include Hadley, Hero, Tillery, Madeira, 100 Moffatt, the Dean, among others. Joining me from Prometheus here this evening is Mike Dakody, who's been involved locally in Mountain View and managed many of the projects I just mentioned over 20 plus year period. Also with me from Prometheus tonight is Tim Nash, who is our senior design officer at the company. We're here leading a larger team. Harvest Properties is our development partner responsible for leading the project's commercial office development. And Harvest is represented by Danielle Friend here tonight. Our design team is well represented here, as well, for the residential design. We have Sarah Architects led by Kurt Schultz. The office architect, his studios represented by Jong Choi, and our landscape designer, we have Charlie Brucker, who's here from place. Kurt and Charlie will be walking you through the project momentarily. Staff covered quite a bit in the staff report. Rebecca did in her presentation. I'll take this opportunity to thank her and Philip and staff for their efforts to get us here this evening. It's been a, uh, it's been a long road over several years through multiple hearings. But we certainly appreciate the hard work and efforts by staff and their support for the project. Our presentation here this evening. We'll seek to elaborate on the design vision of the project, the design intent behind the metrics. This design intent is well capsulized in the staff report. Um, where it describes our efforts to approach the project as an urban garden district, of higher intensity, of office residential and neighborhood commercial development, as afforded and called for under the East Westman Precise Plan. We approached the initial project concept phase by focusing on certain critical open space elements, which you'll hear more about the Popa Park, the linear Park, Paseo, and the network of public pedestrian connections throughout the site. Once these elements were in place, we subsequently layered in the higher intensity residential and commercial uses, with significant attention to overall building design. It's worth, again, emphasizing that this project meets several key objectives and goals of the East Westman precise plan, the project meets the objectives of aiming to transform East Westman into a sustainable, transit oriented, residential, neighborhood and employment center, and the project does incorporate an abundance of new housing. 836 new housing units, including affordable housing, which will specifically feature larger family units. We're pleased to be providing this housing, which will contribute to the city's arena and housing element goals and requirements. As mentioned, this subject property is targeted for greater land intensity within the East Westman Precise Plan. And what I hope becomes apparent here this evening, with regards to the subject development, is we've taken great care, to balance the higher intensity objectives of the precise plan with carefully considered planning and design. The project conforms to the precise plans, guidelines, and parameters, but it does so, we believe, based on a balanced, thoughtful approach to the design holistically. And on that note, I'll turn the presentation over to two members of the design team, beginning with Charlie Brucker, representing place, our landscape architect.

[03:06:00] Charlie Brucker (Landscape Architect, Place): Thank you. Mayor and members of the council. It's my pleasure to be here this evening. So, as we think about the development, the buildings as they are arranged on middle field, have the residential buildings and office buildings set forward on middle field, and on Ferguson. Next slide, please. With a Popo park right there in the front. And as we think about the landscape vision, why is the site here, how is it composed, from the inception, this community has been envisioned as a people centric mixed use neighborhood, one that is adorned with native and climate adapter vegetation, along with its connectivity to the surrounding city that really forms this garden district, as we call it. As we've said, from the inception, it's been aligned with the East Whisman plan. And it's been purposely designed as a pedestrian network, one, to weave itself into the surrounding neighborhood to invite folks in. And this promotes a multimodal connectivity that we think will really activate the public realm. It's gonna be a place that you want to come to, a place that you want to be in. And part of that is this wonderful open space that we've envisioned, this tapestry of green, that invites you in, and forms what we are calling a three dimensional extension of the landscape, offering the shaded delight of these walkways that will invite you to pass through, or for those that are fortunate to live or work there, spend much more time. And the project has selected durable, high quality materials, we'll use specimen plant material, all of these things to enhance the quality and character of the community. Next slide. A key component of the project is the Popa, the Popa Park. And, um, we believe that in time, this will become a community asset that will, um, people will identify as, um, this is the place. It has been designed in tandem with Park Staff's comments, working to enlarge the park, to that just over half an acre, and really engage middle field. It's connected to the rest of the development, both through the road network, but also through a breezeway that connects it to the linear park and to a pedestrian corridor to the south. The park's design references the history of the site, both from an agricultural and from a structural standpoint, creating this checkerboard of publicly accessible amenities, which really work to surround the focus in the heart of the park, which is its lawn. And we're confident that iconic frontal elements, which are a display and reference garden, demonstration garden, will work with the public art that is envisioned right there at the front, to make it iconic. Next slide, please. So whether you're passing it 45 miles an hour in a vehicle, or whether you're sauntering by, we believe that this park is going to be quite welcoming, it's going to invite you in, and whether you're a neighbor or an employee, whether you live here, this is going to be a place where you can come and gather under the shady grove of trees, or the shade structure, where you can discover plants to bring back to your yard, not literally bring back to your yard, but identify them and bring them back in the demonstration garden. And then, um, play with family and friends in the park. Next life. So what is this park composed of? It's really quite diverse in its amenities. We've talked about the display garden and the art. It also has a maintained natural vegetation and habitat space, which is something that we are creating. It has this large lawn, which is, again, the focus of play and activity that is surrounded by what we're calling artful play, so it's not a playground, but it's something that's sculptural and playful, a full scale botchi court, shaded trellis, which is prometheus will structure and make rentable, reservable, seating. It has a picnic area and what we're calling a hammock garden, where you can hang out in a hammock. Next slide, please. That all connects back to the linear park. And the linear park is an expansive space, 650 feet long and 50 feet wide, that connects the residential areas to the office, and out into the community, really, again, inviting folks to pass through, and enjoy the shade and the gardens versus necessarily having to stay out on Ferguson and middlefield. It gives you multiple opportunities to gather along its meandering paths, or perhaps to stop in the center. Next light, please. We envision it as a place that's festooned with both native and naturalized plants, and a place that, again, that you really want to live in or pass through next slide. When you get to the middle, you'll arrive at a place that we call a crossing. And this is a place where the buildings fold down and touch the landscape, and the landscape rises up and touches the building. That idea of that three dimensional landscape. We're constructing a stone amphitheater and a stage that really will support gatherings, community gatherings, or just a place to come and hang out as you move through. And then that entire area is wrapped, again, with native and naturalized plant material. Next light, please. At the far end, the west end, um, the linear park is capped with a, um, an office open space, and that office open space is in a, in a courtyard, at great courtyard, with a specimen tree as its anchor. That's something that we've been working with the city staff on to make sure that it has presence. Then as you walk around, move up into the frontage of this building. We are paying special attention, creating a garden that we've labeled the fragrance garden. And the idea is that it's more than beautiful sense that it's a seasonally changing landscape that invites you to go over to the BTA. Maybe you cross the road just to see what's happening in this garden. The point is that it's an intentional landscape that will invite you, again, into the campus, or community, next slide. And then, uh, the final comment I'd like to share with you is, again, reinforcing our intentional quality to make this a garden district, to make this a place that is focused on native plants that's focused on pollinators, and really a delight to be in. And so, in the end, we hope that the garden district will be a beautiful, hardy, and contributing component of mountain view community. Thank you. All right, next slide, please.

[03:12:56] Kurt Schultz (Architect, Sera Architects): Um, I'm Kurt Schultz. I'm a principal with Sarah Architects in Portland, Oregon, and it's a privilege to be able to speak to you today, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. This has been a very exciting project for our office and our entire design team. I wanted to talk a little bit about the architectural vision for this project. So, really, the garden district is the primary design element for this community, and the individual buildings role is really to shape, define, and activate these gardens, and public open spaces. So I would say landscape comes first. Usually, architects say buildings come first, but we're inverting that idea. So, this diagram actually illustrates that the garden district has a variety of different types of open spaces from the formal Popa Park to more informal gardens and everything in between. The residential buildings and office building differ in materials and form to support each unique landscape feature to create richness and variety within this community. We also worked very extensively with staff to make many refinements to both the gardens and the architectural design, and we really appreciate their input. Next slide, please. This is the view at the Popa Park from Middlefield Road, looking toward the Market Rate residential buildings. The park is located at the key corner along Middlefield Road, and is really the gateway into the entire community. The residential architecture is urban and form at this point, and defines the park edges as a large public gathering space. But the heights of the building also vary to create setbacks and overlooks into the park, and the landscaping, actually, is lifted up and is on top of the buildings, as well as being on the ground plane of the building. So that's what Charlie was talking about with also a three dimensional landscape, where the landscaping is up in all the levels of the building, not just on the ground plane. Next slide, please. Charlie was talking about the linear park, and I wanted to show you some architectural views inside the Winnier Park. The residential architectural character changes at the linear park to really reflect its unique features, and the linear park is not the same all the way through. It has very different kind of landscape moments that we want to enhance. On the image on the left, the residential buildings create an urban room that Charlie called the crossing, where the linear park and the residential podium gardens intersect. This is the most public portion of the linear park. And this view is also looking west toward the office building landscape features. The linear park becomes softer and more residential in character at its eastern end, closer to Ferguson Drive. The architecture also becomes more residential in scale, with two story townhouses lining the linear park, with wood bay windows and raised residential stews. Next slide, please. Now zooming back out to some of the edges of the community. These views are from the exterior edges of the project, which tend to define the edges and are a little bit more urban in character. The image on the left is the affordable housing project that is generated quite a bit of discussion in the southeast corner of the project. The affordable building has the exact same quality of materials, quality of detailing, and upper story setbacks and gardens, just like the market rate buildings. So there is absolutely no distinction between the affordable architecture and the market rate buildings in this community. The view on the right is where the linear park intersects with Ferguson Drive, these urban frontages have a defined base, middle, and top, where the base is defined by two story townhouses that activate the ground plane, and the middle is defined by bay windows, and the top, again, is defined by setbacks, where we have setbacks on the upper levels that allow for outdoor terraces, and for outdoor gardens to be capping off the buildings, and creating a lot of architectural interest and variety. again, this idea of a three dimensional landscape, not just a landscape on the ground plane. Next slide, please. Now I'd like to pivot to the office building and the parking garage, designed by Studios Architecture and the Harvest Development. The office buildings located in the northwest corner of the project at the key corner adjacent to Middlefield Road. And the office building parking structure is in the southwest corner behind the office building. Next slide, please. The office building is located at the key corner, adjacent to the park, and the office building is built of mass timber construction, with its wood structure exposed to view. The main entry of the office building faces the park, and the key corner is also highlighted, highlighted by recessed outdoor terraces with upper story landscaping. With brick and the wood being the predominant materials, The office building is an elegant gateway that supports the Popa Park. Next slide, please. And then, finally, the office parking structure in the southwest corner of the site. The parking structure has an integrated landscaping on the building facades, where landscaping is actually growing off of kind of a vertical structure of wires and cables. And, um, it also has integrated facades with vertical cane mail, which is a mesh colored in different natural colors, all in the purpose of creating a vertical expression of the garden district in a vertical facade, rather than, again, just being completely at the ground plane. This concludes our presentation. We're really excited about the project, and we're very excited to hear about your comments and questions. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:19:50] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so I'm sure that there are some, uh, council questions. Do any members of the council have council questions? Have questions? Uh, Vice Mayor Mamachek?

[03:20:07] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. During the presentation, you provided a description of the artful play area, could you say that again? What's there, and what's it used for?

[03:20:25] Unknown Speaker: Whether you're a child or whether you're an adult, it's a place that you can go and hang out, it's rooted in the idea of nature play, so this is a place where we'll most likely take peeled logs. I mean, it's an intentional landscape, and it'll be combined with a play surface underneath it to have a sculptural framework. So you won't look at it, and it won't immediately speak to you and say, in bright red colors, come play with me, but it'll be, it's adjacent to the natural area, and it'll cross the line between being something that's beautiful to look at, and something that's inviting to play on.

[03:21:04] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And how do you play on it? Does it move at all, or you're climbing on it?

[03:21:08] Unknown Speaker: Climb on it, and, um, yeah, you could climb on it. You could chill on it. And I say chill, because the conventional playground is designed typically in sections for two to five year old, five to 12, and then teenagers. And the idea behind this is that it will appeal and be usable for anybody.

[03:21:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you.

[03:21:27] Unknown Speaker: Mm hmm.

[03:21:28] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um... And can you tell me what the somebody, I'm not sure who would answer this question? Um, what the dimensions of, um, what is has been called by several different things. When I met with the applicant. They called it a botanical garden, but tonight, I heard it called a demonstration garden. Just that portion of the Popa, what the dimensions are.

[03:21:52] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I think the applicant team would be best equipped to answer that dimensional question.

[03:21:58] Unknown Speaker: It's 76 feet in the north, south, and about 156 east to west, roughly. It's almost exactly the same size as the lawn.

[03:22:10] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: As what?

[03:22:11] Unknown Speaker: The lawn space.

[03:22:12] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Okay. Um, and let's see. In the Council Q and A, there was a question about, uh, the process for determining what is in the Popa, and, um, I found that interesting. It said that the developers required to conduct a demographic analysis of the area, within one mile, and an analysis of the elements in the closest public parks, or Popa, within one mile. And it informs them what should be in their popa. And so, Ken, either staff or the applicant talk a little bit about more what you saw, what you learned, and why you made the decisions you made, to, um, design the Popa like you did.

[03:23:04] Unknown Speaker: Certainly. Great question. We, as you noted, did an extensive...

[03:23:08] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Can you speak a little bit more into that?

[03:23:09] Unknown Speaker: Sure.

[03:23:10] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you.

[03:23:10] Unknown Speaker: It can move, yeah. Make it a little bit taller. We did an extensive analysis of the parks in the immediate area, and even a little bit further out, in case somebody was in the region and wanted to experience different spaces. And most notably, Pyramid Park, which is just around the corner, if you will. And what we, um, also looked at is the, who is the demographic that we believe is going to be in this space based on, who's already in the neighborhood, who's going to be in the office, um, building, and then in the residential area, um, the new residential units. And what we found, especially with Pyramid Park, is it has a very large, robust playground. It has extensive, shade structures and picnic areas. It has a dog run and dog park space. It's really quite comprehensive. It's a wonderful neighborhood park, as a pocket park, which is required to be tenths of an acre. We worked with parks to enlarge ours to 0.52, which doesn't sound like a big increase, but it's, you know, approaching doubling the size. That keyed us into what are the qualities that the park could offer those folks that didn't take a huge amount of space. So for example, we didn't want to replicate an entire playground, but we wanted to have something that you could play on. The lawn space was very important to the park's representatives from the city, to be just not enough lawn in the city, right? And so, in the neighborhood, in adjacent schools, in adjacent parks, there's many play fields and play, um, play courts, like basketball courts or volleyball courts. And so, all of those other, those elements are very intensive on the use, so they take up a big chunk of ground, and they don't give back to a large number of people. So if you can think back to the renderings that were on the screen, you could see lots of people using the space. And it was very intentional that we would create seating areas and botchy courts and demonstration gardens and lawn. So a lot of different people could use it at one time, versus putting the tennis court there, putting a basketball court, which were desirable elements within the Popa, shall we say, menu of meeting the need. There's more of it. Is that give you a good idea?

[03:25:38] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um, yes, it does. Thank you very much.

[03:25:40] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you.

[03:25:42] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um, I think that's the only question for now.

[03:25:47] Mayor Pat Showalter: Very good. Um, Council member Ramirez.

[03:25:51] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Uh, so, I appreciate the vice mayor's questions, and following up on, uh, the Pope, uh, I'm not, I mean, maybe this is a question best, best asked of the applicant, but you held community meetings, and I'm curious to know, uh, if you explicitly sought input regarding the Pope a programming. I submitted a question to staff and it, I didn't get, you know, a strong impression that, um, that you did. So I want to better understand the community input process specifically pertaining to the Popa Park program.

[03:26:26] Unknown Speaker: It was not specifically targeted as a outreach component, but we did talk about the park. We did talk to the community members, what was of interest to them, and how could this development best serve the community? And so, we also worked extensively with the parks representatives, having no less than four significant design interactions, where they were voicing their understanding of the needs of the area and refining the work that we were doing. So we definitely started at one place and ended up with what we shared this evening.

[03:27:07] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: What did you hear from the public?

[03:27:11] Unknown Speaker: They wanted a place was less about the Popa, and it was more about the flexibility and accessibility of the overall development. So, um, one thing that was very well received was the idea that, that they would be welcome into and moved through that linear park space, um, that the, uh, the corridor along the BMR was also, uh, intentionally made to feel public, and as designers, you know, you can, um, craft a space to, to put your arms open and welcome people into it, or you can close your arms. And so this project has very intentionally spread its arms open to the park on those points. And that was a constant refrain, partly because of that meeting.

[03:27:58] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Right, but no programmatic elements were suggested by the community. at least in your outreach. Did you, as the applicant, propose the programmatic elements? Were these your concepts, or were these suggested by CSD, by city staff?

[03:28:18] Unknown Speaker: They started as our concepts and evolved with their feedback and input. Yes.

[03:28:22] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. So I guess it's fair to say that you, as the applicant, really drove the Popa programming, essentially beginning to end. It wasn't outside influence that.

[03:28:34] Unknown Speaker: Well, I think the members of the parks department were very influential. They, um... For example, they drove the lawn to be the size it is. It had smaller spaces. There was more space given to gathering in the initial designs. There was an opportunity. Also, I think, just, for a moment, the Popa requires two distinct elements to be of a certain size and programmatic response. And so, determining what was important and how we would achieve that was something that the design focused on. We also, if you notice, with those different amenities sought to achieve many of them in the park, even if they were not physically large enough to qualify it based on the metrics. Does that make sense? You have to be a certain size to be called a playground. So we can't call it a playground. You have to be a certain size, to be an exorcise space.

[03:29:32] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Understood. Okay, I see the CSD director standing up, but I would welcome your feedback, but one last clarifying question. Is the Popa Park programming an element discussed during the design review consultation meeting?

[03:29:47] Unknown Speaker: Very much so, yes.

[03:29:49] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you. And so, John, I guess, what I'm mostly interested in is, to what extent, we, as the city, were driving the programmatic elements, and to the extent, the applicant really said, I'm fixed on these particular elements.

[03:30:05] Community Services Director John Marchant: Good evening, John Marchant Community Services Director. The review process definitely started at a place of looking at what is being proposed by Prometheus. Um, this is also staff's opportunity, first opportunity to work within the, um, the new Popa Ordinance. And so this was a bit of a learning opportunity for staff as well. What I will say is we, as staff did our best to look at the ordinance, make sure that we were following the elements as best we could, that were within the ordinance. And so we were able to modify certain areas grow certain areas. Um, we said no to certain areas, um, that we thought, and turn it into things that we thought would be more, um, more accepting to our general public. And so we did have a number of meetings looking at what they were counting toward the Popa, what elements should be part of that Popa process, what shouldn't. And so, yes, at the end of the day, we were utilizing their design, but we definitely had the opportunity to provide input and they were open to that input.

[03:31:07] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Thank you. Two quick questions for you. The staff support these programmatic elements. Are these really what you think are the best elements to include in this part of the city.

[03:31:18] Community Services Director John Marchant: Given the size and the constraints, I would say that this is a good design. Um, the, um, character from the front of the park with the native plantings that was something that staff thought was gonna be important, especially the educational component of identifying what the plants are in some of the history of the, of the park, um, that came from staff. as part of their initial design, and we took it to another step. Some of the constraints, I think, are what would be considered typical park design within the playground area. There was not a desire to have a typical playground area at this location, so we were trying to work with the developer to find what might be a useful substitute in this development.

[03:32:07] Unknown Speaker: Okay, thank you. And last question, and this may not be for you, but I did want to better understand the process proposed in the most recent condition related to the park fee reduction. I don't know if that's, that may not be CSD. So can, uh, staff provide a little bit more information about what that process looks like and how it's expected to play out.

[03:32:32] Community Development Director Christian Murdoch: Good evening, Council, Christian Murdoch, Community Development Director. Could you perhaps frame the question a bit more specifically?

[03:32:41] Unknown Speaker: Sure. Let me see if I could find, so there was a recommended condition of approval, add language to allow a one-time written request to recalculate the Parkland dedication fee applicable to the project based on any updates to or replacement of the fee ordinance with the recalculated fee to result in no less than the 20% reduction in the total fee amount. So I don't want to put words in your mouth. That sounds like, when we complete the nexus study, then, at that time, the applicant would be allowed to submit a formal request seeking a recalculation, and even if the next study justifies a higher fee, it would be no less than a 20% reduction. Is that...?

[03:33:26] Community Development Director Christian Murdoch: That's generally correct. Once the council adopts the required ordinance or other associated components, the applicant would be able to file that request in writing, with the city, for the recalculation, to avail themselves of the reduced fee, if it's greater than a 20% reduction, they could obtain that. If it's not, then they would get at least a 20% reduction.

[03:33:47] Unknown Speaker: Okay, thank you. Do we have a rough sense of when the city work would be complete to allow that process to begin?

[03:33:54] Christian Murdoch, Community Development Director: Uh, I think what I can say to that is, uh, the Community Services Department anticipates initiating the request for proposals or RFP process early in 2025, uh, with some internal administrative work starting in January. That process may take the better part of 2025, given the complexity of the analysis that's associated with establishing the baseline park needs, costing associated park needs, and then going through the technical analysis, next to study, and crafting it into a fee and an ordinance.

[03:34:22] Unknown Speaker: Okay, thank you. I think I understand. Really quickly. Another set of unrelated questions. When was the project application submitted? So I see, thank you for the responses to the many questions, a lot of thoughtful questions. The application was deemed complete April 2024. Do you know when the project was first submitted?

[03:34:47] Christian Murdoch, Community Development Director: Yeah, are we speaking to the formal application or the preliminary application?

[03:34:53] Unknown Speaker: I'd be interested in both.

[03:34:57] Christian Murdoch, Community Development Director: I'll need just a second to pull up those dates. Um, the formal application was submitted on July 30th uh, 2022. Wow, okay, so I'm sorry, the preliminary application. That's the prelim. Yeah, the SB 330 preliminary application. And then the formal The formal application, I believe, was submitted December 14th, 2022. Okay. I may be off a few days there, but it was in December of 2022.

[03:35:32] Unknown Speaker: Okay, thank you. That's helpful. And then, that's a long time, and, you know, I don't want to pretend like I understand what it takes to get to application completeness, but is design review consultation required in order for an application to be deemed complete?

[03:35:52] Christian Murdoch, Community Development Director: No.

[03:35:53] Unknown Speaker: Okay, so it's an entirely voluntary process. And for any residential development.

[03:35:59] Christian Murdoch, Community Development Director: Correct.

[03:35:59] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful. That's everything. Thank you.

[03:36:08] Mayor Pat Showalter: Very good. Council member Hicks.

[03:36:11] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you. Most of my questions were answered in written form, but a couple follow up questions. When I met with the applicant, you said that there was the possibility of adding a dog park because the one at Pyramid Park seemed oversubscribed, can you say that wasn't in the presentation, can you say a little bit about that, or where you were thinking, or anything along those lines?

[03:36:43] Mike Dakody: Good evening, Mike Dakody with Prometheus. I think we're open to working with staff in the community to figure out if there's an appropriate location for a dog run or a dog walk area. Um, you know, that we did identify a location in the Popa, uh, just conceptually that would reduce the size of the overall lawn area. That's one area that would maybe make the most sense. But again, we're willing to work with staff to see if there's another space somewhere on the site that would be appropriate for a dog run or a dog walk area.

[03:37:17] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. Also, I'm trying to get a sense of the park, square footage that's open to the public, we did get, in the staff report, some different figures, but the part, and I don't know if this takes time to calculate, I'm looking at the square footage of the linear park, because it has programming and so forth, and seems like a place that people can walk and do the various things that are offered there. And then, also, the Popa Park together, because those two together, to me, seem like what's available to the public. Now, maybe you don't have those right off. You do? Oh, okay.

[03:38:01] Mike Dakody: So the combined total open space area for the project is just under 130,000 square feet. available to the public.

[03:38:12] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, with that, you're including various other paths as well.

[03:38:18] Mike Dakody: The publicly accessible paths, such as the service street area, the linear open space areas, the Popa Park. But maybe I think you were specifically asking about that sort of larger linear open space combined?

[03:38:35] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, the more programmed ones, not sort of like an enhanced sidewalk.

[03:38:39] Mike Dakody: Yeah, so if I'm remembering the dimensions that the applicant provided in their presentation, I think the linear park would be plus or -30,000 square feet, given like a 650 by 50 dimension at, you know, 0.52 acres, that would put the Popa at, you know, probably plus or -25,000 square feet. So combined, they would be roughly 50, you know, a little. Yeah, 55,000. Okay.

[03:39:10] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you. And then maybe you said this, but I missed it. There's the possible condition of approval to study shared parking with the BMR building residence to park in the office parking lot. Do you have any estimate or if you've not worked this out yet of what the hours might be? That it would be open, or is this too early in the process?

[03:39:39] Mike Dakody: Uh, Council member too early in the process. This comment came up at Planning Commission. We've since worked with staff and worked through condition language that said we'd certainly explore that, but the hours of operation. That a detail that would come later. Hours are part of what's not explored yet.

[03:39:54] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. Thank you very much. That's it.

[03:39:59] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Kamet.

[03:40:00] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Thanks to my colleagues for asking a majority of the questions that I had as well. But I think one of the things that came up in my conversation with the applicant was a little bit more about the programmatic elements of the open space areas. And I thought it might be helpful as we prepare to hear public comment. Maybe your thoughts since seeing many of the residents reach out. Some of the ideas they shared. It sounded like there might be a continued openness to work with. our community services department. And I just wanted maybe the applicant to share a little bit of that before.

[03:40:39] Mike Dakody: Sure. Yeah, in addition to the dog run or the dog walk. We're absolutely open to work with staff in the community to look at the pope of programming again, to see if there's a better way to do it, or something that's more beneficial for the community and makes more sense. So, absolutely, I'm open to doing that.

[03:40:57] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Great. I don't want to teeter into comments, so I'll turn it back to the mayor. Thank you.

[03:41:02] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you so much. So, I think that brings us... Ah, I'm sorry, another light. Council member Ramos.

[03:41:10] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor, sorry about that. I just had one question in the slide seven, it mentioned that the EPC asked about BMR resident access to the market rate, building common amenities, and it says applicant, evaluated and determined this to be infeasible. Why?

[03:41:32] Mike Dakody: So, Each of those buildings are on separate parcels, most likely they're going to have separate ownership entities. They're gonna, you know, there's gonna have, we're gonna have to have financing on each of those separate buildings and parcels. But more importantly, each of those buildings, the amenity packages, so the market rate buildings will not have access to back and forth between the two market rate buildings, or they won't have access to the affordable building, as well. And so each of the buildings are sized. The amenity spaces are size appropriately for the number of units that are there. So, in our opinion, it just, it makes more sense to separate them out for various reasons that I mentioned, but also, the affordable building, the amenities spaces are geared toward the services that are earmarked for those residents, right? And so to be competitive for the financing that we're going to be going for, there's very prescribed services that we need to include in there. So, most likely, those amenities spaces are going to be much different than what would be required in the, or what we would do in the market rate. Um, I hope that answers your question.

[03:42:43] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you. I think it does.

[03:42:50] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so now, that brings us to the end of council questions. And after counsel questions, we have public comment on this item. So, if there's anyone in the Chambers, who would like to speak, please come forward. Looks like Mr. Kusamal is going.... Is there anyone else in the chamber who would like to speak? Okay. Oh, San... San Mei lead. Oh, you're here. Welcome. Oh, no, sorry. Are you calling by name? No.

[03:43:24] Mayor Pat Showalter: Uh... Oh, God. Send me lead? Welcome. Thank you.

[03:43:32] Sammy: Thank you for having us here, city council. I'm a resident of radius at Westminster Station, and I've been a resident there since it first started in 2018. I attended all the park meetings when Pyramid Park was being built. Ray Rodriguez was in charge of city parks then. He's now retired, and we thank him every day for Pyramid Park. A lot of the community suggestions were incorporated into Pyramid Park. And we thank the city for that. And let me just quickly overrun what were the important pieces that we wanted as a community for Pyramid Park. It's a playground, right? We need a small play area for children 0 to 5. We need a small play area for children 5 to 12 and we need play area 14s, a traditional playground. We have a basketball court. We ask for a basketball coat and not a tennis coat. Why? It helps more people come in. We asked for a small gym or exercise area. Why? Because not everyone can afford an expensive gym membership or work in a major tech area where they get a free gym at work. We wanted to be inclusive of everybody in the community. And we had park space and common picnic areas, because not everybody can afford expensive play areas where they go and pay $40 an hour, or $20 an hour, to have their kids play in an expensive jungle gym. All these factors were incorporated to make that play area, that park inclusive, regardless of the affordability skate. If an adult wanted to exercise, they could do so. If a child wanted to play, they could do so. Additionally, we have disabled families in our community. It could be disabled parents who cannot take their children to a park, which is not easily accessible. They cannot drive, they cannot go by bus. A park which is easily accessible is very, very important. Maybe because you have a disabled child, or you have a disabled adult. What does a park incorporate? It's simple. We have two swings for infants. We have two swings for older kids. This is for 600 units, 400 units of Revella, and 200 units of radius at Wismin Station. And this is a 2.75 acre park. You are now telling us, hey, we are building an 800 unit community, which is going to have a 0.62 acre pack space. Right, adjacent to this, you have an other community in development, which is on 415 east middle field. That's an additional 600 unit community with 0.39 acre park space. The reason you don't have swings in these places, you don't have slides as you probably saw in the map, is because you don't have space. A bucket coat is also there in a community. What's a bocket coat? It's a rectangular piece of sand. Kids cannot play in that. Adults may play in it, but not kids. All we are asking is a larger playground. What we want is a traditional playground. If you are building an 800 unit community, and then an additional 600 units, you now have 2000 units, competing for 4 swings. Right? Kids are not that patient. All right? Kids, kids are simple. You give them a nice magic brick.

[03:46:53] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you so much. Okay. Next speaker, I think it's Mandy Lao. And then, um, Shu Shen. Welcome, Mandy.

[03:47:06] Mandy: Hi, thanks. My name is Mandy and I'm a very proud resident of Mountain Mew Wisman Station. I have lived in Mountain View for more than a decade, and I consider a crown jewel of Silicon Valley. I feel a strong sense of responsibility, and to protect and preserve it. I express my concern regarding the proposal. Specifically, I have two major concerns, the park ratio, which was talked about, and safety. The proposed part ratio, the proposed project includes 8836 rental unit. And if I average three people per unit. We're talking about 2,500 people. However, the space is only 0.52. Mountain Muse standard, 3 acres of park space for every 1,000 residents. I understand this is a recommended guideline. By this standard, the park size should have been 7.5 acre. The current plant offers only 115 of the park page, which would place immense pressure of the pyramid park that we just talked about. While we understand the increasing the part ratio to 7.5 is not reasonable, we strongly urge you to consider increasing the part space to at least match the size of Pyramid Park, which is a little over 2 acre. Safety concerns. First one, traffic. In 2019, mountain approved a vision 0 report with a goal of eliminating traffic fidelity fatalities by 2030. According to the report on page 24, the intersection of Highway 237, and Middlefield Row had the highest number of car crashes. Between 2014 and 2019, 43 total car crashes. Far exceeding the second highest intersection, which is in Shoreline El Camino. That was only 10. This is the exact intersection. The project is going to be developed, and adding another 2,500 new residents, on top of the existing residents on the area on the Wisman station, will significantly increase the traffic collisions. And how do you achieve your vision zero aspiration by 2030? Personally, I witnessed a car crash two months ago in that exact spot, and the police had to redirect me to take Central Expressway, and since then, I stopped using that route to go to work. Crime. Over the years, we have seen an increasing crime in the neighborhood, particularly theft. One of the most serious incident occur in October 2019, that 20 cars were vandalized on Ferguson Street and Bedford Square, which is really close to the pyramid park. And in the past two years alone, according to the Mountain View Police website, more than 350 crimes have been reported within just 1,000 yards of the proposed site. This is not even mile, 1,000 yards, only 350 crimes. Adding so many residents could exacerbate the safety concerns. As I mentioned, the beginning, I'm a very proud resident of Mountain View. I fully recognized the need for more housing, but it must be done responsibly. We cannot place all the burden.

[03:50:18] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, thank you so much for your comments.

[03:50:20] Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, Shu Shen.

[03:50:29] Joel: Thank you for having me. My name is Joel. I also am a, I'm on to be a resident. So I also, I think Sammy and Mandy has shared most of the concerns that I have. I want to add a couple of data points. I think the traffic intersection, the fatality, issue, that intersection is within a 100 feet of the proposed development site. And we are adding 800 units, which roughly equals the 2000 people, to that choke point. I don't know how much increased fatality rate that will bring to this. It's also actually, like, we have another office building, so that kind of mixture of traffic patterns will create a lot of uncertainty and additional risk to that intersection, which is already very dangerous. So I want to just highlight how close that intersection is to that building and how many residents and office space we're adding to basically make the traffic worse. So I think the other problem, the other 2 people have already shared is the park issue. So I'm living right next to Pyramid Park, and although Pyramid Park is very populous, which itself is a good thing. I think it creates an unforeseen problem because the park is very close to the residential area, especially the populous parts of the park, which is the kids' playground and the dog areas. They have literally no buffer between these populous areas and the residential areas. So I unfortunately have to endure a lot of noises as well as some unsafe traffic patterns on the local streets. So a lot of people are heading to the park, driving while looking around for parking space. So you know how unsafe this is. I wouldn't trust my kid just crossed the streets themselves. I'm not saying this is fault from anyone in this room, but I think this is a problem that will be made even larger when we have this new plan that are adding 2000 people with a tiny little park that is .5 acres. There will be a lot of people coming to the pyramid park. That's for sure. So the problem will be even worse. So I just urge us to think about these problems. What other solution to these, if we want to push forward the development. Or can we hold back and then really carefully think about the risks before making a decision here? Thank you.

[03:53:32] Mayor Pat Showalter: Next is Jim Zeyorsky. Welcome, Jim.

[03:53:37] Jim Zeyorsky: Okay, can I borrow your hat? Your hat. Thank you. Um, I wasn't gonna talk on this issue tonight, and I really appreciate the work that the people from Prometheus did putting their work together, and I think one of the things that they talked about that is key to good city planning, is looking at the needs of the residents. and taking the residence' needs and integrating it into a plan. Unfortunately, when you have 2,000 or 3,000 people entering an area that already has a population of 9,000 and only has half the park space that it has now, a lot of those people are gonna play basketball. A lot of people are gonna play soccer. A lot of people are gonna play pickleball. A lot of people are gonna want to play baseball. The .52 acres that they're proposing is not sufficient to do any of those things. And so it's gonna fall on the city to figure out how we're gonna meet the needs of our people when we currently have one half of the Quimby ratio in that area, and it's gonna be halved by the two developments we're considering. I don't think that the way the state laws are written, that the developer is going to be responsible for all of that land. It's gonna fall to the city. And we're gonna have to think of city council members and leaders, how we're gonna meet those needs. And if we don't, we're gonna have developments like this that are well thought out, well planned, actually make this area worse. And it doesn't have to be that way. So I would submit that in integrating a development like this, that is well planned, adds a lot of units, and this is there in these units, we also have to look at how are we going to meet the needs of the people who live there in a way that makes living there better? Because there's people in this council that live there? And they know it's not gonna make it better, and we need to think about how we're gonna meet those needs. Thank you very much.

[03:55:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Next is James Kusamal. Welcome, James.

[03:55:43] James Kuzmo: Thank you. My name is James Kuzmo. I'm largely speaking to the, uh, letter of the Mountain View Yimby sent in support of this project. We think this is an excellent project, adding, making it possible for, yeah, more people to join our community. It's superb, especially with so many units being subsidized affordable housing to make it so that yet more people can live in the same areas that all of us who are fortunate enough to already live here are. We do support the staff recommendation to include a condition of approval, such that the certificate of occupancy for the BMR units will be issued, and those units will actually be there before the market rate units are being moved into. Um, And just on, on some of the other topics that are raised. I'm glad that there is not a huge amount of capital being spent on building yet more parking spaces in, or excessive numbers of parking spaces. In this project, there is parking in the project that will help ensure that both we are spending developers' resources aren't actually getting more people housed rather than adding yet more traffic to the area. Um, and for anyone who is curious, the, there is a CIP project to improve that, um, 237 middlefield road interchange, I believe it's 1965, from what I was just checking, if I recall writing, this is just my memory, unfortunately, that scored quite highly on some prioritization list that the VTA put together for measure B funding. Um, I don't know what timeline that project will actually happen on, you have to ask city staff, but hopefully there will be, uh, yet more safety improvements arriving in the future in that area, um, which will be excellent for everyone. And I just want to say, I think this is an excellent project, and I'm glad to see more housing in the city, especially near one of our rail lines. Thank you.

[03:57:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay, so that's everybody in the chambers, I think. And we'll move to our virtual speakers. The 1st one is Bruce England. Bruce, are you available?

[03:57:55] Bruce England: Yeah, I had to wait for the unmute butt. There you go Thank you. Bruce England, Whisman Station Drive. Yeah, I appreciate pretty much all the comments that have been made. I did make a note in my notes. I think, unless it's a different project. What James was referring to is the project called Middlefield and Moffatt, Complete Streets Improvements. Middlefield's pretty awful in a lot of places along there. So hopefully that will improve some things and make maybe make some people happy. I also agree with the comments about park space and just traffic safety in general. I think those are important. Also, the housing is important. And the BMR units are important. Again, as James was alluding to there. So I have 4 comments, brief comments, and I've said them before at the last EPC meeting, for example, so the developers will be familiar with these. Okay, it's one of four. Well, I assume most of the reason for moving heritage trees is due to where they are in the parking areas. I urge you to do all you can to keep as many trees as possible on the project site. Mountain View is currently working on the new biodiversity strategy and urban forest plan. Uh, forest plan, and one key aspect of the plan in, uh, the community has advocated for is protection of trees and increase of our overall tree canopy. Two, I urge you to establish lighting policies through the project that honor best practices related to dark skies. City will soon be developing new ordinances on this, but they don't yet exist. However, you can find information about best practices through organizations such as the international Dark Sky Association to help you get an early start on this. Note that many locations in Mound V have already taken such steps. So there's some best practices there too. Three, I also urge you to keep the park space on the site as unprogrammed as possible in the interest of flexibility for multiple uses and not to use artificial turf in any part of the project site. And last, I hope that you'll use solar and heat pump technology for energy purposes across project facilities and as close to 100% as possible if you do. Thank you.

[04:00:01] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And the next is Lena. Lena, are you available?

[04:00:07] Lena: Hi, can you hear me?

[04:00:08] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, we can.

[04:00:10] Lena: Yeah, hi, thanks for having the opportunity to talk over here. And to start, I've also say, understand the city does have a housing goal to meet, but as a current residence in the affected area, we have our everyday life to live through, and my everyday life, uh, visit this project means that I will have to travel through a highly dangerous intersection with a couple 1000 new, uh, new residents and like also some, uh, some, uh, some people coming to work. So that's going to be so dangerous, and also my child is going to be shocked, uh, how chaos and crowded, uh, therapy, love, the neighborhood or park has become, how, like, say, they may have to wait for 10 minutes for us to win. And that's, like, that's not really something I want to leave, uh, continue living with. Like that's actually main trigger me to move away from this current location. And also the someone actually suggests as to walk a shoulder, 2 to 3 miles to use the reservoir park playground. Which is, like, really, that was something I would expect to hear from the city of anybody who has reasonable sense. Advancing, I really feel shocked that the city only wants to honor the Munich code, fully aggregated ratio, and particular for this project, we just want to give away unbelievable small one. That feels like a clear discrimination for this area, and why people just want to give us a small park compared to all the other park. I want to ask like, for any of the city council members, do you want to live in a place with such a small park ratio? Also from what I collected from the disclosure before this hearing. Many of the city council members have met with the project applicants. However, only 102 has met the community red numbers. I would strongly uh suggest most city council members to experience the current driving condition and the public park usage and means to visit residents before making a decision to approve the park. And we, uh, as we address at the beginning of this meeting, we are carrying city at the mountain view, and we have a can do city council, and we want to, we want to really address that by making this project reasonable and really show care to the residents, existing residents. And I'm actually surprised we didn't talk about the traffic issue, the park racial, anything from the council member questions. Yeah, that's what I have right now. Thank you.

[04:02:29] Mayor Pat Showalter: And the next is Rashmi. Rashmi, are you available?

[04:02:35] Rashmi: Yes, can you hear me?

[04:02:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, we can.

[04:02:38] Rashmi: Thank you. Um, so I I just wanted to speak as a resident of Mountain View, um, hearing what my fellow residents have been saying. I don't actually live in the Westman area. I live on the other side of town, but I do certainly empathize with their concerns. It sounds like the amount of park space that's allotted for this project is pretty laughable. If it's 115th of what the, what the city of Mountain View generally recommends and, you know, I can totally understand the concern for not having enough space for everyone, especially if it seems like there's already a little bit of overcrowding in the area. Um, 2nd I do also want to echo Bruce's comments on the heritage trees. We are losing heritage trees at an alarming rate. I feel like every day I hear about more heritage trees that are going to be cut down, um, for one development or another, and, um, as Bruce has mentioned, this is actually a priority that has been brought up, um, in the biodiversity and urban forestry plan, and, you know, it, you, it, something that, um, residents care a lot about and something that we need to, um, make sure to keep our focus on. So I urge the developers to try to maintain and preserve as many heritage heritage trees as possible. Um, I had a 3rd point, but I lost it. So I'm just gonna take a few seconds to think if I can remember it, and if not, I'll say thank you. I can't remember right now. So anyways, thank you.

[04:04:15] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. All right, we have one more virtual speaker. Judy. Judy, are you available?

[04:04:22] Judy: I am. Thank you so much for taking my comment and thank you to everyone for the presentation and the insightful questions. Um, I am a neighbor in Ravella. I've been here for a few years now. And I truly appreciate the diversity and the commonality of this community. I've never quite lived in a community as diverse and as supportive as where I'm living now. And I'm speaking of the greater Wisman area. Um, a few points that I just wanted to echo that, um, we brought up at the, um, last environmental meeting. And have also discussed briefly today. One is a dark skies. Um, I totally um, support any initiative to maintain those standards. It's incredible to be able to walk around in the evenings here after dark and actually be able to see the sky and I would hope that the new development maintains that. The other one is the park space. And then the other one is the fact that the main Ravella service drive through which basically all residents go is only a few feet away from the proposed site of the service drive of this proposed development. And even today. And there's a sidewalk right there. They both would empty onto Ferguson Street, Ferguson Road. sorry. Um, and even today, I just saw a pedestrian almost getting hit by someone exiting, um, the Ravella parking lot. It's, there would need to be some sort of measures taken, or I strongly suggest that, um, as was mentioned in the last meeting, that, um, something be done with their plans so that not everyone would be pulling into, um, or onto Ferguson Drive. Um, you know, just a few feet away from each other. Thank you again for your time, and, um, I appreciate looking to, you know, seeing how this developed, and, um, hoping that somehow we get the housing that we need while also maintaining the open space and the park, and, uh, all the other needs of the local residents. Thank you.

[04:06:48] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay, that brings us to the end of our public comment. So it's time to bring this matter back to the council for, um, comments and, um, emotion. Um, So who would like to start? It looks like Vice Mayor Manachekwood.

[04:07:07] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I'm not ready to make motion, but I do have comments. Okay. And I want to start by saying I appreciate the neighborhood, sending us emails and reaching out to us to share your thoughts. A previous council member once said to me, that you're the experts on your neighborhood. So you tell us what's happening there and what you want to see. Because you live there day in and day out. And so I appreciate you sharing your comments here tonight. Um, I also live in the Wisman area. And I, on the other side of Middlefield. And Pyramid Park is a hit. It is very, um... It's just what was needed in that part of town, and it's usually very crowded, and Council member, May, would know as well. And you can never find a place to park in that area. And so, you know, you pretty much have to walk to the park, but that's okay. It's good exercise to do that. But the amenities that are there are the right ones. for that neighborhood. I also have the concern that the folks who live in this proposed development are going to want to use Pyramid Park as well, because it is so great. And because they don't have what they may be looking for in this new development. So I appreciate the applicant being open to talking about, or changing the plans for the Popa. And specifically, when I asked the neighborhood, what two aspects of Pyramid Park are used the most. It was, um, the equipment for tots, the tot lot. and the dog park. And I would make a distinction between a dog park and a dog walk. So, from my perspective, a dog park is one where the dogs are off leash, and you're throwing a ball, and they're running after it. A lot of times they're divided into a small dog, dog park, and a large dog, dog park. And I chose those words very carefully. Um, so that you understood it's sort of 2 different areas. But we also have some dog parks where they're not separated, and, um, the one that comes to mind is the one in San Antonio Center on the Hitch Hitch right away. They're all together. And we have more and more people, um, with dogs. And I think we need to accommodate that. The dogs need exercise, just like people need exercise. Um, and so, what I would like to see is, um, us rethinking both the Popa, as well as the linear park, and add, um, equipment for 0 to 5, um, 5, and I'm not sure what the upper age limit was there, but things like swings, slides, things you can climb on, um, A lot of parks, it's really popular to have some sand and water and kids play in that. There are so many things. And I think we need to add that to this community, as well as a dog park. I'm concerned that what's there now, and I think the EPC described it pretty well when they said it wasn't really functional park space. So I want something that's more functional. And, um, I'm not sure, um, we need the demonstration garden, for example, and that's a large, um, area that I think could be repurposed, is something more useful. And while I understand, it's very nice to look at. Maybe you can preserve some of that along middle field so that there's some divider between the park and a busy road. And I completely agree that the intersection of Middlefield in 237 is one of the worst in the city. I said that to the previous city manager many, many times. So now I'll say it to the current city manager. It's a horrible intersection. It is a different project than the one Bruce England was mentioning. This is the one where they're going to reconfigure Cal... is reconfiguring, or has plans to reconfigure that intersection. It's a major project. I don't know if it's funded or what the timing is. I'm happy it's going to be done, but it's pretty much in the future. If there is anything we can do to address that intersection in the near term. I think people who go through it a lot, like I do. would appreciate that. Um, so, um, I'm not sure. I mean, I think I'd like to add a condition to the, um, approval um, about working with staff. I don't want to be so prescriptive that there isn't the opportunity to try different ideas. I actually am open to some of these elements being in the linear park. When I met with the applicant, they talked quite a bit about how they want to program that area with music and arts and other things. And, you know, I shared with them that I don't know that that's gone over well in another part of town, where they've tried to really program an area. They've had some hits. Um, I think miniature golf went over well, um, but they've had more misses than they've had hits, um, in activating that area. in San Antonio Center. And, you know, I know they're trying hard, and I appreciate it. But, I don't know, I guess I'd rather have a sure thing and have more functional space than something that requires a lot of programming. to make it active. So maybe some of the, um, taught lot stuff can go in the linear park. I'm not sure the dog park would go there, because that's why I was asking, and I appreciated you mentioning the dimensions of these. The linear park is 50 feet wide. You still want to have space for people to walk. I think I was at the first community meeting you had. Thank you. I was there. I was one of the nine, I guess. Um, and, um, I recall now, some of the people who are there are some folks who live not too far from me, and they do like to walk in the community, so you would have gotten a lot of comments about we want to be able to walk through here. But I don't recall a bunch of families coming to that meeting. But I do recall the folks who like to walk. So I can explain that input you got. But I think we can rethink the Linear Park. Um, I can see where you can have, um, some areas that you try to program, because, um, that would be nice. I think, you know, the area described as the, sort of like the steps that people can sit on. Um, yeah, I can see people hanging out there, reading a book or something. Or, I mean, you could even have, you know, the children's play area, or at least one. I think you can divide that up a little bit if you wanted to, because people want to be able to walk out of their house, if they have very young children, and have a place for them to play. And so, I could see parents sitting on those steps and the kids playing, like, right in front of them. So, I'm not prepared right now to propose a condition, but I want my colleagues to think about what they would like to see, because I think we've heard pretty loud and clear that we need to rethink this area. while not, you know, reducing the scope of the residential part of this. I appreciate you being open to, I'm going to switch topics here, uh, being open to finding additional parking for the, um, affordable, um, development. I personally think that, um, if I'm struggling, the last thing I want to do is, after I've worked two jobs, come home, and I have a car, because public transportation is not great around here, and I'm in construction, so I've got a lot of tools with me, and I'm not gonna ride my bike, but I don't want to come home late at night and drive around forever, trying to find a parking space. And, um, so let's not make it harder on folks who need help. Let's at least provide some parking so that, um, they have a place to leave their car at night. Um, and let's see. I think that's it for now. Thank you.

[04:16:29] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And who would like to speak next? Council member Hicks.

[04:16:40] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, the vice mayor's kind of said it all. There's not much left to say. So I will say, I'll second, I think all your comments, maybe there's one or two, I don't remember that I didn't agree with, but, um, I wanted to say that I really appreciate the linear park, um, because I do walk a lot, and I know people who walk a lot. I appreciate the, um, the architecture, the building cladding, the bricks, the mass timber, some of the things that, uh, the vice marriage did not bring up. I appreciate that the Pope Park is shielded from the busy street, to some degree, and sort of the coffee house, with more amenities, and also, as the vice mayor said, they offer to pursue, shared parking between the below market rate apartment, and the office parking, as she said, I think that's super important, the low income people I know have, like, several nanny jobs in different places, and are driving more than people I know who make more money, who work remotely, and don't drive so much. So, that's all important to me, but also, I think the other big issue is kind of tinkering with the park so that it matches what some of the needs of the community are, whether that be, and I'm sure other council members will have other ideas, but I appreciate a lot, the, you know, the kind of garden district and the work that you've done. And I'm sure you can pull off a good job of adding taught lot amenities, maybe some more tables. I've heard the tables, the pyramid park are overbooked. Um, for birthday parties and so forth. You know, some sort of dog, dog walk, dog park, and I'm sure other council members will have additional ideas. But I want to say, I think, above all, I think, the amount of park space that's being supplied is probably not gonna be adequate for the amount of development we're expecting, and that it's on all of us, particularly with the reduction in park phase that we're hearing requests for. It's on us to find ways to fund more... I think we can put all the amenities in the world in these park spaces. We need to add more parks, and maybe more on that later tonight.

[04:19:26] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. All right, I don't see any more speakers. So, um, oh, I do see one more speaker, Council member Ramos, and then, um, Ramirez, and then, and then Kameh. So we are stepping up. Great. Council member Ramos.

[04:19:41] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. I think we're now starting to pile on to the commenting pile. I greatly sympathize with a lot of the neighbors who are concerned about the park space. We know that we have a lot of different priorities in our city. One of them being getting enough housing in our city so that people can afford to live here. Then we have the priority to ensure that once people do live here, their quality of life is Good. to the standard that people in Mountain View have been accustomed to. Um, I think, um, what we have been trying to do as a supervisor submittee and always, uh, said how a Mount of East can do attitude is trying to find a way to meet all those those goals altogether. And in some cases, as council member Hicks said, it's going to be up to all of us to figure out how we can get that park space. I do think that, um, there might be some rethinking of the programming. on that park space to be more effective so that we don't have to worry that, um, that it's, it is so that we do know that it'll be properly utilized by the residents there. So we don't have to worry about them being like, this does not serve our needs. Let's go to Pyramid Park. And I see that is, that seems to be a real fear in the community. So I think, um, rethinking the programming so that, um, those needs are met, it will be an important part of this project to make it work. Um, We're undergoing things like our park and rec strategic plan, which hopefully means that we are our, uh, hopefully includes better programming and also more park space. And that is something that is constantly chugging along. Um, and I believe uh, public comment or mentioned about uh, some improvements to that uh, intersection that people are concerned about, and I believe the vice mayor also mention the specific project as well. Um, that at least that doesn't have to be, uh, um, either or kind of situation, that eventually in the future, we will get that intersection improved. And we can still have our housing. So those are the general comments I have regarding this project. We, well, I mean, I wasn't here when we adopted the precise plan, but I believe the goal of the precise plan was to plan for the growth of our city in these particular areas. We made that plan. This project meets that plan. Um, and so, we, for when it falls short, we just have to find a way around it, and that's, that's on us, and it's on the residents to hold us accountable to make sure that, uh, the concerns don't pan out as, as we would be worried to, I guess. Um, I don't I don't think I'm ready to do the emotion either. So I'm gonna leave that to the next people.

[04:23:14] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, council member Ramirez. And I think we are, as I hear people talking, I think we're getting closer. Council member Ramirez.

[04:23:23] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Let's test your hypothesis, Mayor. So, this is an extraordinarily complex project, and I think as a starting point, I want to express my gratitude to the applicant and to staffer, putting together what I think is at a high level, a very good proposal that will help achieve the vision in the council approved East Wisman precise plan, and introduce housing in an area where we've entitled a few projects, but have struggled to see projects actually get delivered. So I think some previously approved council projects actually have died in that area. So I'm hoping, you know, we can see Prometheus and their office development partner actually be among the 1st to break ground in this area with a residential proposal. So I'm going to attempt to make a motion. I will move to approve...

[04:24:26] Unknown Speaker: I hit the motion.

[04:24:27] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Oh, okay, well, then I guess I won't make a motion. No, that's fine. All right. I did have some questions for the applicant, though. Okay. The first is, would the applicant voluntarily accept a condition along the lines of what the vice mayor had described, including direction to, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but essentially, work to integrate the kinds of Popa programming that we've seen successful in in Pyramid Park. Well, we'll see. We'll see. But I'm interested in your response to that proposal.

[04:25:17] Public Speaker: Uh, yeah, I think that was answered earlier in terms of, um, we are amenable to working with staff. Uh, Vice Mayor Matachek, when you were saying, and you're going to be formulating the motion, give us a little bit of flexibility to work with staff, so it's not so rigid, but I think we're hearing your commentary, and we're open to working with city staff, park staff, on the programming, um, and trying to accommodate, uh, some of the wishes tonight.

[04:25:46] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. So, that and... see the CDD director...

[04:25:52] Unknown Speaker: Mayor, if I may, I just wanted to propose some specific language that would maybe shape up what I heard the vice mayor say. I've consulted with the community services director as well, and we would both feel comfortable with the condition along the lines of prior to issuance of a building permit, applicants shall coordinate with city staff to integrate revisions to the POPA in linear park programming, to integrate, uh, to incorporate, rather, amenities, including, but not limited to a dog park, and play equipment for children, such as swings, slides, climbing obstacles, and or sand slash water play features to the satisfaction of the director of community services. Thank you.

[04:26:30] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Sure. Prior to issuance of a building permit, applicants shall coordinate with city staff to integrate revisions to the POPA, a linear park programming, to incorporate amenities, including but not limited to a dog park, and play equipment for children such as swings, slides, climbing obstacles, indoor sand slash water, play features, to the satisfaction of the director of community services. I have to read a bunch of stuff into the record. Um, so, but just to be clear, uh, well, don't second yet, I haven't made the motion. You may disagree with some things. But I did want to, so, uh, just to confirm the applicant is comfortable with that condition.

[04:27:18] Public Speaker: Um, that might have been just a little bit, um, the specificity in some of that language, might have been a little bit further than what I would have hoped. I mean, maybe pair that back a little bit, is what, hopefully, I would respectfully request. Um, I guess, I'm not in a position to formulate condition of approval language. So maybe we'll come back to that. But at a high level, there is agreement with the vice mayor's proposal to allow the applicant to work with staff to come up with alternative Pope a Park program. Absolutely. Yes. Okay. We'll figure that out. So, I will move to, actually, let me use... Somebody have a... Agenda flow that they can pass to him? Yes, but I think there might be other things beyond what's in the agenda flow. So I'm going to the council report. to make sure I have a, okay, so actually it just, it is these two. So I will move to adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View conditionally, approving a planned community permit and development review permit to redevelop the project site by removing two existing office buildings and surface parking and constructing a mixed use development comprised of 836 residential rental units, in three new buildings, including one seven story, and two eight story buildings with 2,344 square feet of ground floor neighborhood commercial space, and a below market rate alternative mitigation proposal, a six story 275,200 square foot building, an 8.5 level parking structure, a 0.52 acre, privately owned, publicly accessible park, and a heritage tree removal permit to remove 40 heritage trees, all on a 10.58 acre project site, at 675 to 685 East Middlefield Road, 8 pm, 160 60 013, and adopting an initial study of environmental significance compliance checklist for the 675 to 685 East Middlefield Road. Mixed use project pursuant to sections, 15162, and 15183 of the California Environmental Quality Act, Sequa, guidelines to be read into title only, further reading waived. And two, adopt a resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View, conditionally approving a vesting tentative map to create five new lots with one lot, further subdivided into six units for condominium purposes, for three parking garage units, two residential units, and one commercial unit on a 10.5 acre lot at 675 to 685 East Middlefield Road, 8 p.m. 160 60 013, to be read entitled only for the reading waived. And I will include... So project condition of approval 28, parking management, plan, condition of approval. I guess, project conditions of approval, 193, and map condition of approval. Number 20, language, which I will seek staff guidance on, related to, uh, direction to, uh, the applicant, to work with staff, to, uh, identify alternative POPA programming elements, uh, that achieve the goals that the vice mayor had articulated. And that is everything. I will share... This is where the council may have some other ideas. I actually support the applicant revised proposal related to the alternative mitigation plan and BMR conditions of approval as I read through them. I think the accountability measures are very strong, and I think they will provide either the standalone structure, and the payment, or, alternatively, 15% inclusionary units, if the standalone site, cannot be delivered in a manner that will achieve our affordable housing goals, but also ensure the feasibility of the proposal. Thank you.

[04:31:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: Mr. Murdoch, would you like to share with us a slightly revised condition of approval?

[04:31:46] Mr. Murdoch: Thank you. Yes, Mayor. I think what may reflect some additional flexibility would be language along the lines of prior to issuance of a building permit, applicants shall coordinate with city staff, to explore opportunities to revise Popa and linear park programming, to incorporate alternative amenities such as a dog park and play equipment for children such as swings, slides, climbing obstacles, and or sand slash water play features to the satisfaction of the director of community services. Thank you.

[04:32:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Is that acceptable to the applicant? Okay, I see positive response. Thank you very much. Okay, so now we have a motion and a second. That's great. And, um, I understand that somebody has a... Well, Ellen, Council member Kame has not had an opportunity to speak yet. Would you like to speak on the motion?

[04:32:46] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Sure. I mean, I'd like to speak on the project, so... I mean, I assume that includes the motion. So, um, so, one, um, thank you to Council member Ramirez and the vice mayor for crafting, um, emotion before us, uh, I want to thank staff and the applicant. This is a, um, I want to say it's a really great opportunity. Um, you know, living in the area and nestled between the Wisman Station and the middle field station, having access on and off the freeway there. I think there's a really great opportunity to add to the really vibrant community. And I think that's what we're attempting to do today. So, um, what I'd like to do is just talk about, um, a couple things that, uh, hopefully, the, will play into the motion and the, the considerations as it goes forward is, I think, um, I'd like to touch on the sight lines. So, recently, we had, we were looking at neighborhood traffic calming along Ferguson. City staff is recently monitoring, I think speeding is an issue along Ferguson, as well as middle field. And as we're talking about adding more residents, that is bubbling to the top in terms of concern. It was mentioned that this is a high conflict zone, and what people do in this community, this area, they walk, they run. It's a very family oriented community, a very multigenerational community, who really want to be able to get outside and how fortunate we are to have an opportunity to give them additional places to walk and frequent. So I wanted to touch on that. Really grateful to the applicant for working with staff, on exploring the shared parking. Parking is an issue in this area because I do, as I mentioned it, I think it's very multigenerational, and people are, um, really wanting to, I know they come from other parts of the city to come to Pyramid Park. And did want to touch on, we didn't discuss this tonight, but the retail commercial space. The Ravella has a retail commercial space along Ferguson that has sat vacant since it opened. And my hope is with the existing community that is there, with this new community coming in, that we can really add to the residence quality of life by writing, retail commercial space. That's desired based off of them. And so as we're going through not only the talking about the Popa and the public space, I'd like to really be able to get residential input on what type of retail they would like to see there, every time I go by this empty vacant space on Ravella, it's very painful for me because I think that people would love to see something in that space and see that activation. Um, and so, um, grateful, um, that we're gonna be able to have that, um, in this new development, but really think, in addition to, um, the conversations about the park elements, that that's included. So, um, I think that is what I'd really like to touch on. I think that what was proposed for the open space, um, while I feel like, was, uh, you know, beautiful rendering, I thought that for the residents who live in the area, it just didn't feel like it had their, um, their input on it. And so, I hope that we're thinking about the experience of the residents. And then one last thing that I did talk to the applicant about is many people a lot, walk along middle field, and they're either going to cross the VTA light rail to get to the Wisman station. There's a path along the fence there, going to the left, and then or they're going to cross, and they're going to try to get to the middle field, VTA spot. And so, I know that they had mentioned there's gonna be, like, a fragrance garden in front of the office. But really trying to think about, like, the whole, the holistic kind of experience of those who will live there, because, um, one of the residential concerns was that people will not use this space and go to pyramids. So just thinking about how we can get people to flow to these different areas of the community would be great because I do hear what a council member Ramos was saying, there's also further opportunity for open space. And I just want to put that out there now that that's going to be of interest to me, and I know of our council. And so if there's anyone who has parcels that they would like to come to the city with for further open space, I know that we would love to work with them. Thank you.

[04:38:05] Mayor Pat Showalter: Very good. Okay, vice mayor Manachek.

[04:38:15] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So, yeah, there are some parcels in the Wisman area that I think I would like the city to be very interested in procuring. Um, and I have mentioned them to the city manager probably too many times. Um, so, uh, regarding the condition. Um, I, you know, I am the wordsmither on the council, and very much focus on words. And, um, I want to make sure this is more than just, um, consider or evaluate, it's actually due. So, um, Do we need to change that? I think it started out with, um, consider or evaluate. And I'm not sure what the right word is, but I want to make sure it's certain. So, in, I guess, the interest of providing some greater flexibility and less specificity, there were 2 parts that were relaxed, and I think we need to consider those separately. The 1st part is the Explorer, which is not as specific and directory as do. Revise the Popa programming, we can revise that language to require the revision to the Popa programming. Briefly consulting with the applicant, the greater concern was some flexibility on what the list of amenities or revised programming would include, to be explored. That was where the flexibility was more important to the applicant. So, including those list of exams. We could work with staff to revise. Right. And to me, that is that certain enough? I'll ask the city attorney. Are those certain enough terms? Work with staff to revise? Or are there better words? Well, I think it's certain enough, but what are you trying to accomplish? Yes, to revise the, um, the programming in the Popa and the linear park. So just... And actually, I would be okay. There's other parts of the project where you might be able to put something. Um, so, you know, I'm listing those too, but I think there's other, when I met with the applicant, we looked at a couple other spots. Maybe it's the public space. to be a little bit more... broad. And I'm okay with some flexibility, but I think the things, um, I would like to make sure there are, um, activity areas for, um, children, 0 to 5, and then 6 to 12, I think, are the kind of the dividers. Um, and that could be different things. I personally, and I don't know if my colleagues agree with this, but I don't really want to reduce the lawn space, because I think that's an important aspect of what a park has. Um, but that might be too specific for them, um, but I would, I really don't want to reduce it. When we met, we talked about, you know, putting a dog park there, and I'm like, Oh, no, no, no, because you still need lawn space. Well, let me... Take a run in... addressing these. Prior to building permit issuance, applicant shall work with city staff, to revise Popa and Linear Park programming, to incorporate alternative amenities into the Popa, Linear Park, or other site areas, such as a dog park, and play equipment for children, 0 to 5 years, and 6 to 12 years of age, such as swings, slides, climbing obstacles, and or sand slash water, play features, to the satisfaction of the director of community services. So I think you could drop the sand and play thing if you want a shorter list. Anybody else have any thoughts? I feel like this is so hard to do at a council meeting, as opposed to, when we can think about it. I think that the thing that's so important is that, um, it has till the director of CDD agrees. And I think that, and he's clearly heard from us. And, yeah...

[04:42:43] Unknown Speaker: He services, yes.

[04:42:44] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, so I think that, sorry, the parks director, I think that's really important. And that's in there. And to me, that's the, what gives it real strength. And it doesn't say should. It says shall. Okay, and so I... Oh, actually, um, Council member Ramirez, you mentioned a couple of, um, conditions 193 and 20, which were those? I don't have that open. Oh, I see. It's in here. I see it. I got it. Never mind. Okay, so I'll leave my second.

[04:43:22] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Hicks?

[04:43:23] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So there's also several council members that brought up, um, the, uh, studying a shared parking agreement with the office partners of this project. Oh, it's included. Okay, great. Sorry. Um,

[04:43:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Abi Coba.

[04:43:38] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Thank you, Mary. And, um, made any remarks yet. I... said I thought I'd say something. Um, I support the project. I wanted to just note, I appreciate that this is a project that conforms with our precise plan that we did for this East Visman area. And, you know, Counselor Ramirez, yes, about the timeline, and 2 years can be seen as long, but in light of the many other projects we've done, especially gatekeeper projects that can go up to 10 years. I think this is a clear example of why we do precise plans and that it does streamline the process and help provide the guidelines that developers can follow and then get through our process more quickly. So, um, I just, that, that, um, all the work that we've done on our precise plans, you know, coming to implementation to fruition, um, is, uh, I'm very pleased to see that. I will make one thing that came up, VTA does have the construction for the middle field 237 intersection scheduled for 202627. So there should be. Hopefully, I'm not sure if they're on schedule right now, but it is, looks like it is moving along. And then the issue about retail space, very much, you know, appreciate the interest in that. I remember looking at the Ravella retail space, and this was when in the 1st iteration of that parcel project, and we went through a lot of discussion about, I mean, we all wanting retail space, but frankly, just the challenge of that area where there's just not a lot of traffic, but traffic, car traffic. And I think that's a challenge, perhaps, in this development as well. But I will say that as we, you know, one of the, I don't think we highlight the benefits of density, but one of them is that you can create the critical mass to support some kind of retail, whether it's a coffee shop or maybe even eventually a grocery store in this neighborhood. So in time as, things develop, I do believe that there will be more retail opportunities, but it is a challenging area in light of the traffic patterns there. So, I think that'll continue for a while longer. But otherwise, appreciate the editions or the edits to the motion. I think it's a good project as a whole, and I look forward to supporting it. Thank you.

[04:46:32] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes. Okay, so that means I'm the only one on council who really hasn't spoken, and I am very supportive of this project. I do very much appreciate how many of the things that other people have said, how this follows the precise plan, a great deal of thought was put into the precise plan, and this will help to make a much more vibrant, mixed residential office area around the middlefield area, which I think is going to be a big improvement. I also very much appreciate the willingness of the developer and our staff to be flexible and move quickly, to make the changes that we've been talking about in the last week and a half with the developer about this. So we can bring this to fruition, and hopefully, we can get, you know, we can get some, uh, a project started quickly. Okay, so with that, it's time to vote. I'm delighted to say that it passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Hey, yeah. So it is now 10:15, and we've been at it since 6:30. Should we take a five minute break, or do people want to, and we needed a, we probably needed a motion to continue past 10? Uh, Council member Ramos?

[04:48:14] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I move that we continue the meeting past 10:00...

[04:48:22] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, we have emotion in a second. Let's vote. Okay. I'd like to take a five minute break. Five minutes, everybody. And, um... are you Jennifer Well, our other two council members will be back in just a minute, so I guess we have, we'll wait for them. But, um, count, staff is in place. Thank you so much. This has been quite a meeting. We always find that the last meeting of the year is, it's just got, it's very meaty. I think that's the nicest way to say it. There is so much work that everybody, for all the right reasons, wants to get finished by the end of the calendar year, and here we are. So, with that, I'm going to bring the meeting back to order, and welcome everyone back. We are now on item 6.2, 334 San Antonio Road, affordable housing project. Would any council members like to make disclosures? I will just say, right, from the start, I met with the, um, I met with the property owner, and, um, I mean, the applicant and have visited the site. Council member Ramirez.

[04:52:45] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I went to the community meeting, gosh, several months ago, but I never actually had a formal interaction with the applicant. I had that opportunity, which I think is worthy of disclosure. Thank you.

[04:53:03] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Ramos.

[04:53:05] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I met with a representative of the applicant, and I totally used that gas station in years past.

[04:53:12] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Vice Mayor Mattachek.

[04:53:15] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I met with the applicant and I've been by the site.

[04:53:20] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member, Hex.

[04:53:22] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I also met with the applicant and visited the site.

[04:53:25] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Abikoca.

[04:53:27] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mary. I've also met with the applicant and visited or passed by the site many times. Thank you.

[04:53:35] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so with that, principal planner, Diana Panchioli, and senior planner, Jeffrey. Tomorrow we'll present the item. If you would like to speak on this item. Please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. So, staff, anytime you're ready. Go ahead.

[04:53:53] Diana Pancholi: Okay. Well, good evening, Mayor, and members of the council. My name is Diana Pancholi, principal planner with the city's planning division, and I have with me tonight, um, Jeffrey Samura, the project planner. The item in front of you tonight is a affordable housing development at 334 San Antonio Road. A little over half an acre project site is, um, Located on the west side of San Antonio Road between, um, California Street and Senate Ann Miller Avenue. The site is currently developed with an automobile service station. The Journal Plan designation, um, for the project, is mixed use corridor, and zoning is within P 40 San Antonio Precise Plan. The surrounding uses include commercial uses to the north and east, a bank building and residential to the south, and a restaurant and residential uses to the west. The project is requesting a Planned Community Permit, to construct an 8 story, 100% affordable residential apartment development, which includes 99 affordable units and one manager unit. The project is approximately 118,000 square feet in size and includes a one level at grade parking garage with 16 parking stalls. Additionally, the project is utilizing state density bonus law for a 78% density bonus above the base unit. A little bit more about the state density bonus, as the project is 100% affordable housing project. The project is eligible for up to 80% state density bonus. The applicant is proposing 44 bonus units for a total of 100 units. Under the state density bonus law, the project is eligible for up to 5 concessions and unlimited waivers of development standards. The applicant is requesting 5 concessions that would result in identifiable and actual cost reductions to provide for affordable housing costs. This includes the removal of precise plan TDM requirements, relief from minimum standards for ground 4 height, open area landscaping requirement, common usable open space requirement, and the request to underground existing overhead utilities. The project is requesting 7 waivers as well, or reductions in development standards that would otherwise physically preclude the construction of the project at the density permitted. This includes relief from maximum floor area ratio, building height, number of stories required for frontage setbacks, height at frontage setback, personal storage, and window recessing. The staff has determined that the project could not be constructed without these concessions and development standard waivers, as full code compliance would generally require a reduction in density bonus area. A little bit about the affordable housing plan. The project includes fully affordable units at 80% of the area median income. This exceeds the city's 15% BMR requirement. Below market rate requirement, and provides for a wider variety of lower income units. Pursuant to the state density bonus law, a condition of approval has been added to de-restrict the affordable units for a minimum of 55 years. Project also complies with other requirements, otherwise applicable under the BMR ordinance, including the unit mix and distribution throughout the development by the nature of all units designated as affordable units. Now, looking at the site plan, the proposed site plan features a C shaped building oriented around at grade secured outdoor courtyard that fronts the California street frontage. The primary building entrance is located at the intersection of San Antonio Road and California Street, with another pedestrian entrance located further south along San Antonio Road. The project includes a ground level parking garage with vehicular entry to the project site located at the end of California street frontage. The development also includes a secured indoor bicycle room and short-term guest bicycle parking along the California frontage to meet bicycle requirements. A little bit about the design, the building has a contemporary design and employs a combination of accent colors, lower level recessed windows, and vertical and horizontal articulation to reduce the visual mass. Pedestrian experience along the project frontage is enhanced through strategic location of landscape features, along the frontage and use of painted metal canopies at the ground for entry points. The river part the trees on site, the site has 3 existing non-heritage street trees, consisting of 2 along California Street, and one along San Antonio Road. The existing site is almost entirely paved or occupied by the building areas utilized by the existing service station, and there are no other trees located on the project site. The project will require the removal of 3 existing street trees due to conflict with the footprint of the new detached sidewalk proposed to meet the San Antonio precise plan sidewalk requirements. Additionally, transplanting the existing trees on site were found to be unsuitable, unsuitable due to the large size and poor health conditions. The applicant proposes to plant 15 new replacement trees, ranging from 24 inch box to 48 inch box, size, and proposes at the 5.15 is to one replacement ratio, which exceeds the city's standard practice of one is to one replacement ratio for non-heritage trees. The new replacement trees are anticipated to create a net gain of on-site canopy coverage with a 10.3% canopy at full maturity. The project includes approximately 10,200 square foot of open area and landscaping, including landscape strips along the new detached sidewalk, perimeter landscaping, and planting within the central courtyard area. The project includes palette of dot tolerant, California native and adaptive plant species with approximately 75% California native planting. The central courtyard offers outdoor spaces for residents, including children play area, gathering spaces with casual seating, and barbecue amenities. Little bit about parking and transportation. The project is within one half mile of major transit stop and is not required to provide any parking per assembly bill AB 2097. However, the project is voluntarily proposing 16 vehicular parking spaces and will include required electric vehicle equipment installed parking spaces and spaces accessible to persons with disabilities. These will be located within the ground level parking garage. The project is proposing 100 long-term bike parking spaces with a secured bicycle room and 14 short-term bicycle parking spaces near the corner entry lobby and stairwell. Under the state density bonus law, the applicant has requested a concession to remove the TDM requirement for this project, which is required under the San Antonio precise plan otherwise. However, the applicant has proposed an annual $50 transit subsidy for each new resident for the 1st 3 years upon completion of the project. The proposed measure aligns with the precise plan goals of reducing vehicular trips and promoting alternate modes of transportation. In terms of environmental review, the project is found to be exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, pursuant to section 15194, the affordable housing exemption of the Sequa guidelines. The project meets all the required conditions for the affordable housing exemption. A standard condition of approval has been incorporated in the project resolution to address any potential vapor intrusion risk from the site's historical use as a gas station. The project is also determined to be consistent with the city's vehicle mile travel policy and have a less than significant VMT impact. In terms of opportunities for public input, during the review process, the project was reviewed at a design review consultation meeting on June 5, 2024, which provided suggestions for streetscape, landscaping, and other design improvements at the meeting. Subsequently, the applicant implemented few changes to address the DRC recommendations and worked with staff to make these changes. The applicant held a neighborhood meeting on June 21st, 2024. Five people attended the meeting. The journal feedback was supportive with no major opposition raised from the attendees. Earlier this year, in November, our environmental planning commission reviewed the project at a public hearing. The EPC discussed several topics regarding the project, including the limited on-site parking, improving the transit subsidy offer, long term affordability following the deed restriction period, and improving delivery and moving truck accommodations. The EPC recommended unanimously, the project to be approved, and provided that recommendation to the city council. This brings us to the conclusion part. The project is found to be consistent with the applicable development standards, achieves the general plan and the housing element goals by increasing the affordable housing opportunities in the city, and it also helps meet cities, regional housing needs allocation. Therefore, staff and the environmental planning commission recommends that the city council adopt a resolution, conditionally approving the planned community permit and development review permit, pursuant to the conditions of approval attached to the city council report. It should be noted that staff receive 4 public comments on this item which have been provided to the city council prior to the meeting. One of the public comments was from water district acknowledging the um, presence of an on-site's well location. Another one was a follow-up from EPC comments with concerns over parking. Another public comment was in support, and the last public commenter reminded the city of its obligation to adhere to the housing laws. This concludes staff presentation, staff, um, is present here tonight if you have any questions. Additionally, the project applicant is also present here tonight and has a brief presentation for the city council. Thank you.

[05:05:17] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Yes, applicant, will you please come forward and. We'd love to hear your presentation.

[05:05:30] Shellon Rodriguez: Yes, we can. Is that better? Yeah, that's bad. I hear. Okay. Thank you. Are we gonna pull the presentation up? Is that okay? Thank you. And it's, um, 334. There's a missing, missing 3 there. Would you hate it when you notice that in the public meeting? Um, I'm Shellon Rodriguez. I am representing CRP Affordable Housing and Community Development, Garrett Bascom, development directors here, as well as members whom are designed team. Um, I'm gonna try to take some of what I've learned here tonight, specifically from Supervisor Joe's submitian, whose name I'm not sure that I got. But I'm gonna say thank you for having us first, but also thank you to staff for not only, uh, taking having a lot of patience with me and our team, but also having a very thorough report here in front of you. So thank you very much for your hard work on that. With that said, we'll go straight to this slide, perfect. CRP, CRP Affordable Housing and Community Development, who we are, right? We're new to this community, but we're not new to the Bay Area. We've got projects, we have over 2,500 affordable projects in California that are owned, operated, and developed by CRP. We're full service, vertically integrated real estate firms. So that means that we entitle, design, develop, build, own, throughout the life of the project. So we don't buy or we don't build and sell. We're founded on the principles that you have in front of you, providing high quality, affordable, safe and stable housing, and strengthening the communities that we work in and that we create. Next slide please. So just real quick, we've got a project in San Diego that's complete. just to make it real. We have a project down the road, the meridian, and Santa Clara, almost 60 units, 59 units of affordable housing, complete, fully leased at this point, very similar financing that we're proposing here tonight. And then the next slide, I'll just show you a couple projects that we've got on the boards, both in Burlingame and in San Jose. These are under construction. Burlingame, we're aiming to have complete and start leasing up in Q1 of 26, and then Dry Creek Crossing, down in San Jose, will be hopefully later in 2025. We have over 10 completed affordable housing projects. We've got seven under construction, including those two I just mentioned, and then we've got five additional projects slated to begin in this upcoming year. This slide, I'll be brief on it. The point here is, if you wouldn't mind scrolling down a bit. It's from California Housing Partnership. And the area in red just represents the 54,000 plus. Extremely low income and very low income residence in the county that don't have access to affordable homes. So the need is great, meaning we've got to continue providing affordable housing. I know that's not a surprise to anyone here. Next slide. Bringing it down to this community, based on your housing element, there's a handful of bulleted points there that you can read, but I want to just point out, if you wouldn't mind scrolling down just a bit more. The last, the last bullet point there. These units, 99 of the 100 units will be affordable, and we'll meet your arena requirements, and we are not asking for any subsidy through the NoFA process. And I want to put that into perspective, because I just saw an article in the Mountain View voice just last month. Um, and a resident who just got into her BMR unit said it's like winning the lottery, and I think she'd been on the wait list for 3 years, and it sounded like the waiting list was from one to 8 years, depending on unit size. So the need is great. With that, next slide, please. This particular project, um, will be a typical tax credit project meeting the incomes that your city's NoFA projects will meet. It's a state density bonus law project, and it meets the, it goes through the housing and accountability act, meaning we have those concessions and waivers that we discussed earlier, um, and that objective standards apply. I also wanted to show you the chart, really the point here is that we have a pretty good mix of unit sizes and unit incomes. Over 60% of the units in the project will be serving what we believe to be families at 2 and 3 bedroom units, and our amenities will meet their needs. Next slide, please. So this one, I'll go quickly on, and then I'll turn it over to Alexa Dak with Dalin Grouper, architect, but again, this is the site that we saw in the presentation. It's the Tessoro station. There is an auto mechanic shop there. We're working with them to try to relocate them when they feel that the time is right. But you can see this is a pretty prevalent corner, um, in the San Antonio precise plan, so we're excited to meet all of the streetscapes and the right of way requirements that are in the plan. And in the bottom, the bottom image is just the picture of the project, as it will, as we intend for it to look. So with that, I'll introduce Alexa Deck, Adak, who is our lead architect, to go over some more specifics. Thanks.

[05:11:04] Alexa Dak: Thank you so much for your time this evening. So, as we looked at the last slide, and as we get into this, we feel like this is a really prime site, for a lot of opportunities, we do have some significant density around us with some other five, six, 7 story projects, right adjacent. We have extreme proximity to transit here, both in bus stops, and, of course, the Caltrain station, and, as mentioned earlier, by staff, we are within that half a mile. So we are not required to provide any parking. That being said, we did analyze the site and try to provide as much as we could here. We do understand that this is a concern from the community and some of the hearings we've had earlier. And so Shellon and CRP have a lot of experience managing affordable housing with very reduced, if not 0, parking ratios, so they can certainly speak to that in more detail, if needed. But on the next slide, you'll also say we've got great proximity to a number of parks, a number of grocery stores and community amenities. So we do really feel like this is a spot that we can utilize a number of different modes of transit. We will provide the 16 vehicular stalls. We also will provide the 100 short term and 14 short term bikes. We'll be able to have electric, charging if people have electric bikes, some motorcycle spaces. So we really are trying to accommodate all potential modes of transit here. As we get into the design a little bit, this project will be supported by services for those that live in it, so that could look like a number of different things. Some examples might be having programs on financial literacy, ESL, resume building. We will have a nice community room that will show in the site plan here in a 2nd. That's something that we can host these programs in. People can rent it out for a private party, things like that. And then we do see families here. More than 60% of the units of this project are going to be 2 and 3 bedroom units, and so we really saw that need for the larger family households and want to provide playgrounds for the children and a computer lab as well. As we look at our site plan here, we are in the precise plan area, there are a lot of great guidelines that we utilized in developing the project here. And so particularly along San Antonio, and also the corners, we come into California Street. We acknowledge those are very important frontages and entrances into the community and into the building. And so we've located the majority of our amenities at the ground floor, so we can really engage with the streetscape activity. We have spaces that we feel people will occupy all areas of the day, like male, bikes, offices, along that San Antonio frontage, and as we get into the renderings, you'll see that we have a very high percentage of glazing to really maximize visibility in the activity between the street and then the project. We also strategically located our community room after some working through with staff to refine where it was in the project, to have a great spillout opportunity into the courtyard. We're really blessed to live in California, where we can take advantage of indoor outdoor through much of the year, and so there's opportunities for that space to spill out into our courtyard. On the next slide, we'll start to get a view of the building, really into that main corner as we come together, and we see that main project entrance. You also see the vast amount of landscaping that we are putting into the project. As mentioned, There are those three existing non heritage street trees, so we will be replacing with a 5 to 1 tree replacement ratio. The staff report spoke a little bit to the canopies, but I can certainly speak in more detail later to some of the growth times and sizes of those if desired as well. But we worked very hard and very closely with staff to make sure that we were maximizing it because we did hear that trees were a very important priority, and we agree with that as the streetscape connection is very important here. As we move on to the next, we're on our California Street elevation. One thing to note here, we will actually be widening the street, from its current condition, to be providing the section requested in the San Antonio precise plan. So, in our plans, you will see what we are stepped in slightly from our neighbors so that we are providing that full section. And then finally, we'll end on just a view of this corner. And, again, thank you to staff for such a detailed presentation and all the collaboration on the project. We did have the community meeting. We did go before DRC, and we did make modifications to the project based on the comments we received at both of those. We are very excited to bring some much needed affordable housing here, particularly for this family demographic. So we are here and happy to answer any further questions you may have. Thank you for your time.

[05:15:46] Mayor Pat Showalter: Great. Okay, so council questions? Council member Hicks.

[05:15:54] Councilmember Alison Hicks: No?

[05:15:55] Mayor Pat Showalter: Do you have a kid? Okay, so you don't have any council member questions? You asked them in writing. All right. Okay. Does anybody have any questions for the applicant? Council member Reynolds?

[05:16:09] Councilmember Emily Ramos: It actually wasn't part of Apple. It was for staff. That's fine. Okay. Basically, it was a question that was resulted from the written questions. Um, it was a, it's the first question about this, in this item, is the two window, two inch window recess. How many informal requirements do we have as conditions of approval?

[05:16:36] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Thank you for the question, Diana Pancholi. So you're asking how often we use this? So like, okay, it's the, for context, the question was where can the quote 2 inch window recess requirement be found? Was it unable, was unable to find it in the Muni code or an SAPP? Um, and then the answer was the quote, 2 inch window recess is not explicitly codified in city code. Instead, it is a design guideline and a standard condition of approval for new developments, while not a formal requirement, this guideline encourages the incorporation of window recess to enhanced depth, visual appeal of the buildings, um, and says the plan agreed to the 2 inch window recess, which is fine. But how many, how often do we have these informal requirements? Very very often? Majority of our projects do have this condition and most of our applicants actually incorporate this feature in order to provide a better design?

[05:17:50] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blzinski: Good evening, Counsel, Amber Blzinski, Assistant Community Development Director. I think your question was more about how many of the conditions of approval generally are informal and not, you know, codified. So, I would say there's probably a range of items that are, um, these more informal, um, that have been, you know, utilized as conditions of approval over the years. Mainly, they come from, you know, council priorities, or things that have been said to us, like native landscaping, or things along those lines, and design comments are sometimes utilized that are not, you know, a standard objective, um, but are typically agreed upon with the applicant ahead of time.

[05:18:35] Councilmember Emily Ramos: So, if they're not codified, but are they written down somewhere?

[05:18:39] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blzinski: Yeah, so our standard conditions of approval are something that we review yearly with all of the different departments in the city.

[05:18:47] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yeah. Okay.

[05:18:51] Mayor Pat Showalter: Vice spermata check.

[05:18:53] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um, just a quick question about the transit subsidy. When I spoke with the applicant, we talked about, um, not just the dollar amount, but what type of pass, uh, the residents would get, and we looked at up, and I'm thinking that there might be something more flexible. So I contacted the resident expert on transit here, Council member Abbe Koga. And I'm hoping that whatever transit pass we provide is the one that's the most flexible. That sounds like it's the Clipper. What was it called?

[05:19:32] Unknown Speaker: It's the Clipper, but there is a subsidized version of it called Clipper Start.

[05:19:37] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Clipper start. So... Okay. That would be what I would be interested versus what we had talked about when we met. Thank you.

[05:19:50] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Ramirez.

[05:19:51] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate Council member Ramos's question. I'm gonna ask the same question, but with different words. So I want to understand, so just to be clear, there are no design guidelines that are written anywhere. that include the 2 inch window recess, right?

[05:20:18] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: That is correct.

[05:20:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. So maybe a question for the city attorney's office. Can we legally impose? Um, and uh, a standard that is not written down anywhere.

[05:20:36] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: If the applicant is agreeing to it, I don't think there's a problem with it. But I think, you know, I need to do some research and have a better understanding from staff on whether or not this guideline is actually written down inside.

[05:20:52] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you.

[05:20:54] Community Development Director Christian Murdoch: Good evening, counsel. Christian Murdoch community development director. If I understand the subtext to the question from you, council member Ramirez and from council member Ramos, are we injecting requirements into the process that are not codified, that would affect project cost, project timeline, um, cause delay, uh, for applicants to get through our process. I think the answer is no, and to use this specific example. This is something that I think is good design and is something we aspire to work with applicants on to achieve the best outcome for the projects. There are many things like there's no objective standard for exactly where a tree should be placed, but of course, we're going to work with an applicant to achieve proper placement, good design of the landscape plan, for example. It's in that vein that staff works with applicants all the time, to what principal planner Pincholi said. There are a range of these kinds of conditions that come up in the course of project processing. We raise them. We talk through them with applicants, we try to reach mutual agreement, but we're not arm twisting or, you know, using them as leverage to hold up the processing of the projects. They're really in the furtherance of mutual agreement and better project outcomes. But at the end of the day, if it's something the applicant does not agree to, and it's not a codified objective standard, we're not insisting in affecting the project or changing our recommendation as a consequence.

[05:22:18] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I don't think I have an additional questions about this in this context, but I appreciate you reading into the subtext. Thank you.

[05:22:30] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Hicks.

[05:22:33] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Just to jump off that, I was going, it's interesting discussion. I was going to say the punched out windows or something that I actually appreciate if the applicant has agreed to them. They make kind of a big difference when you're walking along the street, um, in terms of making the building read as kind of a quality, quality architectural product. Um, in, you know, in some, so it improves the streetscape, and, you know, in the same way that some other things, I appreciate also the streetscaping improvements, the trees, and so forth. And I think this will just be part and parcel of that. But I appreciate going into depth, like we usually do not do on these subjects.

[05:23:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Kameh.

[05:23:20] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Sorry, just catching up on the color wheel up here. So just a quick question. So, um, the, um, uh, parking ratio has has come up. And so the applicant sent us an answer to their question that I thought might be helpful for the public to hear as well. Um, if they're not going to be able to get the attachment in time. So, maybe you could share your other projects with the low parking ratio. And then one of the parts of the of your answer said, um, Our info projects that are close to public transit typically have between 0.5 to 0 parking ratios. We find that some people who are car dependent choose not to rent with us. So then, my question would be, then what are the types of people that rent with you? So maybe you could answer both of those questions. Thank you.

[05:24:24] Unknown Speaker: Thank you for the question. Um, yes, certainly, I think we discussed this um, earlier this month, but, you know, it comes up a lot in our business of, hey, you are close to transit. You are on multiple bus routes. Um, you don't, maybe you don't need or you're not required to provide parking, but we don't believe there's enough parking. So again, we're not required to do any parking, but we thought based on the marketability and based on the site design that we had 17 spaces. It got drilled down to 16 for some other requirements, um, kind of unrelated. But at the end of the day, the folks that move in want safe and stable housing. So and I think we talked about this a little bit. Most of our residents are they are working, 1st and foremost, and some of them may choose to live elsewhere, because maybe they are Uber drivers, or they are DoorDash drivers, and they simply need their car, and they don't have a parking space. In which case, there's other affordable housing projects that hopefully they'll get into. But we find that, you know, we're long term owners. It's really important to us, that we are creating communities where people move into, and then live there for as long as they need. And they do that because they want safe and stable housing. So they'll oftentimes, if they do have multiple cars, they'll choose not to have one, or sell one, or not need one, or do other things so that they can have the housing that they need. I hope that answers your question.

[05:25:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Tangentially. So I think, um, one of the elements of the project is that we're unable to, um, like in other projects past, be able to to work on having a Mountain View resident preference. And so, I'm just trying to understand what type of, um, jobs or, or back, you know, just so that we can understand because you did say that those, who may be car dependent, don't choose to rent with you, so I'm just trying to understand.

[05:26:19] Unknown Speaker: Sure. So, um, sorry. Sorry if I wasn't clear. Folks that need their cars in a place that doesn't offer enough, you know, the parking that they would get, maybe wouldn't choose to live here. But teachers, preschool providers, daycare providers, you know, bank tellers. I mean all across the board. Construction workers, folks who are lower level at both at all levels of government, city and state. as it's a lot of working poor. Also, people that might be retired or just living on social security. I mean, it's very, very across the board on who needs housing. Um, it's single moms, it's single dads, it's individuals. It's multi-generational families, kind of... We see it all.

[05:27:03] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, so just to kind of round it out here. So, I understand that there's a great need, and those who need affordable housing, it's a wide spectrum, but I was just trying to ask for a little bit more information on whom you provide, too. I see that we're not kind of understanding the questions here. So that's fine. Um, I just felt like, uh, I was just trying to see if you were... if it's more teachers, and you're seeing that there are teachers who, um, go on the bus routes, or, you know, I, I, that's what I was trying to understand, but I will leave it there. Thank you very much.

[05:27:50] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I have one question. My question is, um, it said on one of the slides that the affordable housing would go for 55 years, and oftentimes, in the projects that we help fund their in perpetuity. So I wondered about that difference.

[05:28:12] Jeffrey Tsumura: Thank you for your question. Yeah, um, so, uh, the BMR ordinance does require affordable units in perpetuity. However, this project is a fully affordable project, so it falls under the purview of a density bonus law, which requires a minimum of 55 year terms. So this project is subject to the 55 years.

[05:28:40] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And has the applicant ever used in perpetuity at other sites, or do they typically use the 55 years?

[05:28:53] Mayor Pat Showalter: The question is for the applicant.

[05:28:54] Unknown Speaker: Thank you for the question. So... Affordable housing financing generally requires 55 years of financing, which is why the state law also melds that 55 years. So CRP and the other groups that I work with generally meet the financing requirements that the state has on the project, which is 55 years. If a financing requirement, such as the BMR, would require it in perpetuity, we would certainly do what is required based on the financing. In this case, we're not using the BMR, as Jeffrey, as I understood from Jeffrey, correct?

[05:29:30] Jeffrey Tsumura: Yeah.

[05:29:32] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, um, Council member Hicks?

[05:29:36] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I actually asked this question in written form, and they gave a much more thorough answer there that you can refer to. But basically, it's what they're saying. They said that, um, because there's no city money in it, they only have to do the 55 years, um, but that, uh, that after the 55, typically, after the 55 years, it will require refinancing, or during the 55 year term, often using tax credits and other government funding, and at that time, a new deed restriction is recorded thereby extending the affordability period. That's from staff.

[05:30:14] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you for sharing that. I read the answers to questions very quickly. Okay. So, I think we've come to the time for public comment. So, we have three names of people who would like to speak in the chambers, and if you are on Zoom and would like to comment. Now is the time to raise your hand in Zoom. So, first, we have Manny Salazar. Welcome back. You're getting to be a regular here now. Unfortunately. No, I'm joking. It's wonderful. As Emily says, the best city.

[05:30:55] Manny Salazar: All right. Good evening, Mayor Schwalter, members of the Mountain View City Council. My name, well, you already know my name. And I'm here on behalf of SV at home to express her strong support for proposed Affordable Housing Development at 34334. Let's get that right. San Antonio Road. First, we commence CRP Affordable Housing and City Staff for their commitment to advancing this critical project at a time when Mountain View is grappling with affordability crisis, you know, the development represents a much needed step forward in addressing housing needs and achieving the city's housing goals. The project will deliver 99 deeply affordable homes for affordable, uh, excuse me, for households or any between 30 to 80% of the area immediate income, along with one manager's unit. As they kind of mentioned already, these are going to be affordable homes for people of all kind of income levels, people that are struggling, people that are in the community and really need these. So that's really wonderful to hear. What I also wanted to highlight, and this is something that I found really interesting, was the utilization of the state density bonus law in order to not have to take any sort of government, excuse me, city subsidy. It's incredibly difficult to get these projects off the ground and actually get them funded at the state and federal level without some sort of localized funding source. So the fact that they're able to do this by leveraging the state density bonus and asking for, you know, these waivers and concessions is, honestly, not only really impressive, but it's wonderful to see, and it's something we'd like to see utilized more in other jurisdictions. So this is really innovative, and I really applaud them for doing so. Um, you know, approving this project will allow Mountain View to make significance progress towards this regional housing use allocation targets, particularly for the lower income households. So once again, we'd like to urge you to approve the project tonight, delays could jeopardize critical funding opportunities, and the community cannot afford to lose this chance to bring these affordable homes to fruition. So once again, thank you for your time tonight. And, yeah, I hope everyone gets home safe.

[05:32:48] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you so much. Next will be Bill Lambert and then James Kutzemal.

[05:32:57] Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh, you're not? Okay. All right, so Mr. Kuzumal, welcome back.

[05:33:03] James Kuzimo: Thank you. My name is James Kuzimo. I am speaking on behalf of the Mountain View MB letter to express the strong support for this project. It is about as ideal of a project as we can have replacing a gas station with a bunch of units of affordable housing in a transit rich area of the city is excellent, especially with things like how train electrification making it a whole lot easier for people to get around the area, especially on the weekends and at odd hours. And look forward to seeing more projects like this. And I hope that we continue to see transit improvements so that someday we can start having projects without any parking so we can get rid of curb cuts and have more ground floor retail and ground floor units and everything. Thank you.

[05:33:46] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And next is Bruce England on Zoom.

[05:33:53] Unknown Speaker: Here we go.

[05:33:53] Bruce England: Thank you, Mayor. Bruce England Wisman Station Drive, again. I'm going to be very short. Looking at the staff report, there is impact on trees, the tree removal picture, and it might be appropriate in this case, and we do get the housing, the affordable housing in this project, so that part is good. So I will just say, um, that protecting the trees we've got, wherever they are, is good to do if it can be done. However, I do appreciate that this was addressed in the project report. And that those of us who do care about such things can read the details. So kudos there for having that inclusion. Thank you.

[05:34:35] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And I, um, I don't see any more speakers, so that closes the public comment, and I'll bring it back to council for, um, uh, comments and a motion. Um, this is, um, Affordable housing is something that's very important to our community. We need, we hear about it on the campaign trail. I heard about it all the time. And that was true this year, and it's been true for many years. So I'm very glad to see this project coming forward, and I'm hoping that one of my colleagues will want to push the button. Council member Ramirez, thank you for doing that.

[05:35:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'm happy to, uh, just for the sake of discussion, move to approve the staff recommendation. Including adopting a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, conditionally approving planned community permit, and development review permit, to redevelop the project site by removing an existing service station, to construct an eight story, 100 unit housing project, consisting of a 99 unit, 100% affordable rental housing development, and a manager unit utilizing state density bonus law, on a 0.62 acre project site, located at 334 San Antonio Road. And finding that the project is exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act, pursuant to sequel guidelines section 15194, Affordable Housing Exemption to be read entitled, entitled only, further reading waived. And I guess just, by way of a few quick thoughts, I appreciate many of the comments from, um, or questions from my colleagues. I think, um, there are, uh, some challenging trade offs that we have to consider. One is the financial feasibility of development, and I understand why affordable housing developers in particular are looking at very low parking ratios. But as we've seen and heard from residents in some other affordable housing developments. That can be challenging. And several of us know people who live in the Luna Vista apartments, for instance, and that's where I've heard that concern most often, at the same time. You know, I would imagine, folks move into a development like this, eyes wide open. They know that they may not have access to a parking space. And that's the trade-off that they make as well, right? benefiting from the stability of affordable housing. This is a constrained site in a high profile location. I think the applicant and staff have done a good job working together to bring a project that I hope actually can break ground, as many of us will recall. There was a project we looked at a few years ago that caused a lot of angst and consternation that we approved, but didn't happen, so hopefully you can do better than that guy. I did have, I guess, some high-level comments that are not directly related to this project, but I feel like it's not great customer service to have expectations and requirements that are an applicant going into the process won't know about. And I would hope, you know, eventually, as many other cities have, including the city I work for, we might transition to design guidelines that are codified, written down readily available to any applicants. So they know going in what our expectations as a city may be. It feels, I'm not comfortable with. Even though I'm not going to disagree with you. There's a lot of soft power in reviewing a project, and so it may not be, you must do this, but even, it would be nice if you do that, can feel, like, a requirement, like direction, especially for applicants who want to get through the review process, expeditiously. It's easier to comply than to push back in most cases. There are some folks who push back pretty hard. And sometimes we push back harder. But I think in most cases, applicants generally want to appease, and I feel like we can do them a great favor, and also provide enhanced customer service if we take the time to think about what kinds of objective design standards and guidelines we want to promulgate that are not necessarily in the muni code, or not necessarily in the precise plan or a zoning district. So obviously, not direction we could provide tonight. But I think that's something I would like us to consider. But beyond that, support the project. You know, it would be helpful to have more information about how you plan to provide outreach to Mountain View residents, so they can be the primary beneficiaries of the project. That's a shared value of the council members who are building housing to house folks in our community who are otherwise housing insecure or struggling. But I know there are some constraints there as well. So with that, I'll push the button that says motion.

[05:39:58] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Thank you so much. Vice Mayor Matachek.

[05:40:03] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I will also support the project, but I echo some of the comments that Council member Ramirez made. Um, I, uh, and specifically, I, um, appreciate the applicant being willing to take a look at additional parking if that becomes a problem. Um, and, uh, not sure I agree about the design guidelines, if this is something we've been doing for a long time, um, and it's working, um, I don't know. Maybe we need to change, maybe not. Um, I also appreciate that you are not asking for any city funding that's nice, um, given the long list of projects that are in our queue, um, and, um, I already mentioned during the questions that it was actually a comment about the clipper card. Um, as being the most flexible, um, tool, uh, someone can have for public transit. But it is income qualified. So, um, well, you know, this isn't the perfect project, I don't think any of them are, but um, I will support it. Thank you.

[05:41:14] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Ramos.

[05:41:15] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. Like my colleagues before me, I am in support of this project, it is interesting because we really have, this is, it's a very unique project as we don't, we aren't providing a localized subsidy to it. And as we are striving to reach, the amount of affordable housing in our, essentially pay for the affordable housing in our upcoming pipeline, we actually don't have the funds just yet. And so the ability to actually have some projects deliver without, um, needing that local subsidy is actually really important to us, um, in order for us to actually make it work. The slightly, truly part of me, was thinking when in responding to council member committees, questions, there was a comment of we had 17 spots, but one of the required, but to fit one of the requirements, we dropped it down to 16. And I'm like, was that a formal requirement or was that an informal requirement? So I don't know. It doesn't actually really matter, but I was very curious. And it goes back to the... The question about the Zion guidelines, how much transparency there is on that. at least on our end. I do appreciate that those guidelines are supposed to be reflective of based on our the goals that we have set as council members. And I do like that part, but it'd be nice to know how does that reflect? And that's just more of wanting to know, which outside the scope of this project. But, um, and I imagine, um, I imagine this is, is the San Antonio area, is a very dense area comparatively, and with a, with the, um, with a Caltrain station right there, and hopefully that the parking won't be too bad. But also, I, I, I am in this area actually really often because I'm actually really, uh, I, I, I stress eat one of those restaurants there, um, the slice house. And I am always just constantly offended by how overparked that structure where the slice house is. And like, it's just across the street from this project. So I do feel like there are there's mechanisms for us to reach those that parking issues if should they arise? I just don't know if there's any, um, we can't really force you to do that, but we really, really strongly hope that you'll take that into account, not, not necessarily whatever are prescribing, but that you'll take into account if our residents do need that parking, that you'll find a way. So thank you.

[05:44:13] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Hicks.

[05:44:15] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, by now, most other council members have said what I was going to say, so I'll just be super quick. Of course, I really appreciate, you know, if you can deliver this much affordable housing without a city sub to date, that'll be super helpful. I also appreciate the streetscaping and trees and the punched out windows on the ground floor. Um, that, uh, because I think that'll help, uh, so that people can walk around the area much more and enjoy it. And I really appreciate your offer to look into shared parking. If you can do that, I actually think that much of Mountain View is both overparked and underparked at the same time. You know, there's underused parking, and then people who need parking. So if you can get an agreement like that, please come back and tell us, because it would be a good model to share around, and I'm looking forward to all of that. I think, like, everyone else has said, the fact that you are going to be able to deliver this without city money is just terrific. I mean, it is wonderful. We really hope that, uh, it works beautifully for you, and you can, um, you can tutor other people about how to do it. Because our, you know, we do have a pipeline, and we have a fund, but they don't match. And we have a lot of people who need affordable housing. And as was said very much earlier in the meeting, with the presentation with a supervisor submittee, and we do have a community that is relatively, is quite welcoming to affordable housing. And I think that's because, typically, the affordable housing has been very high caliber buildings, and it looks like this is following in that tradition. So that's great.

[05:46:13] Mayor Pat Showalter: So I think all of our questions have been answered, and it is time to vote. I'm pleased to say this passed unanimously. Thank you very much to staff and to the developer who have worked so hard. So now we move on to item 7, unfinished business, and 7.one is the public safety building, project 20 dash 49 project scope revisions. Principal project manager, David Printy, and assistant city manager, Arn Andrews, will present the item. If you would like to speak on this item in person, Please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Staff, whenever you're ready.

[05:48:10] Unknown Speaker: There back.

[05:48:33] David Printy: Excuse me, we're experiencing technical difficulties. David Printy, senior principal project manager with public works. Please hold. That's going forward. There we go. Sorry. Apologize for the delay. Once again, David Printy, principal project manager with public works. I have with me Arne Andrews from the city manager's office, and sitting next to me, I have assistant public works director, Ed Durango, and also in the studio, or in the audience, we have Jennifer Ing, our public works director, and we're available for questions after the presentation. So we're here to discuss the public safety building, scope revisions proposed, and I'm getting into it, a little project background. The existing police and fire building. As you know, was opened in 1980. I currently houses the emergency dispatch, fire, and deputy chief, support staff, and emergency operations. The building, because it was built so long ago, does not meet the current seismic standards for essential facilities. It is undersized, as operations have grown over the years, and the proposed building is planned to be built on the same site. Back in June of 2023, staff brought a recommendation to council to build a 68,000 square foot public safety building, with parking garage, and public parking, and also required the phase demolition of the existing facility and use of lot 11 for temporary facilities. And we also presented an architectural design. Council at the time, requested the staff evaluate the program to verify that it would meet the expected growth of the city's needs, public safety needs for 40 or 50 years. Also discussed adding a second egress from the parking structure to a public right of way, and adding a shooting range, and also a revised architectural design. In December of 2023, staff returned to council, then presented, I'm getting used to this. Excuse me. In December of 2023, staff, return to council, presenting a 75,000 square foot public safety building, which had an outdoor event space, adjacent to an enlarged auditorium. It had a public parking with increased parking count, and had a second egress from the parking garage, as requested. We also added a shooting range on the upper level of the parking structure. At that time, we also presented the Civic Americana architectural style, and which council, which council approved as the basis of design for the building. To build this facility, here we have an image of the existing building, we will have to first demolish part of the structure, which currently houses the auditorium space for the building, after which we would build the new public safety building. And after that structure was completed and staff moved in, we would be able to demolish the rest of the site and building and complete the facility. And now, Arn will share with you the financials for the project.

[05:52:28] Arn Andrews: Mayor Vice Mayor City Council. So you'll recall that we recently brought forward a revenue measure based on council authority, that revenue measure was successful at roughly a little more than 72%. And during the revenue measure discussion, staff articulated that if the measure were successful, we would start to move fairly quickly, assembling a financing plan, a financing team, and moving forward in that form. So, the measure did pass. One of the other things counsel did do is adopt a range of revenue that could be dedicated towards public safety facilities in the 35 to 40% range. When you look at what that would equate to, annual estimated revenues of about 9.5 million or so, that gets to about 4 million in measure G revenue. And then back in 2018, and I'm going to thank Council member Matachek for refreshing my lack of memory on a lot of the Amswell related project, we entered into a multiparty, public private partnership with multiple elements. One of those elements was leasing 750 Moffatt, and then, at the same time, there was a property that was then purchased, and then that's where we referred to the Amswell Hotel. All of this combined, staff refers to it as the Amswell Project. And so, between the revenues from the lease that were dedicated, revenues from the TOT that were dedicated sales, tax, et cetera, that currently equates to about 4.1 million in annual revenues. Those revenues do have an escalation factor, which will be important in the coming years, because the 4.1 is estimated to be closer to 44,45, and about the five year time frame. And so that's something to keep in mind for staff as we come back to build out a financing plan. Next slide of. So, what does this mean as we start to develop a financing plan? What we know is we have roughly 8.1 million in revenues from those two combined revenue sources. In speaking with our financial advisor, 8.1 million at current market rates will equate to roughly 135 million and bond proceeds. We also know that since there hasn't been a public safety, building project yet. Those AMSwell revenues have been accumulating in a reserve, which is currently around 23 and 1/2 million. And then, we also know that at one point, the public works department did put aside about 2 million in construction and conveyance tax. And so, for us, as the financing team, we know we start to have a base of about 160 and a half million for us to work towards the project. And now public works, we'll talk a little about how they start to align a project, that starts to look a little closer to the types of proceeds that the financing team, things we can bring to bear.

[05:55:29] David Printy: Thank you, Aaron. So... the... so the provised scope that staff is proposing is currently to propose no changes to the public safety building, and to reduce the parking structure from four floors to three, which would provide a total parking count of 244 versus the original 320. The shooting range would be reduced from to eight to 10 lanes from an original size of 12 to 15. And we would initially only build a cold shell, which is just the exterior walls, roof, and weatherproofing, waterproofing, for the facility that could be built. The interior improvements and equipment could be installed at a later date, once funding is identified. And in the art budget, as we recall, in the last council action, we recommended a $1000000 public art funding, which is above the maximum in the current policy of $400,000, and in order to, again, every little bit helps. We'll propose to reduce that funding back a little bit lower to 500,000, which is still above the current policy maximum of $400,000. So with these proposed changes, we believe that the facility, when built, we'll meet the current and future operational needs of the police and fire departments for the foreseeable future. Sorry, excuse me. So, the previous estimate for the project before these reductions was around 210 million, and with the savings garnered from reducing the garage, that would save about $7 million, and reducing the size and building only the shell, we would reduce it by 14 million. So it would bring the total project cost to 189 million, which, against the available funds, aren't just mentioned, of 160.5, brings the funding gap to approximately 28.5.

[05:57:42] Arn Andrews: And I'll just add from a financing team perspective. 28 million.5 starts to get closer to a reasonable gap to fill, even though we're not coming forward with a formal financing plan tonight, as the staff report indicated, we think this is in the realm of reason, to start to look at ways to strategize, to close that gap, there's a multitude of things we can look at, the city is currently in the budget process, and Mountain View has been fortunate, that often there are surpluses at the end of the year. That's one thing we could look to. We also know that we have current reserves. We can take a good look at the reserves we have on the general fund side to see if there's any way we could possibly reallocate funds there. The public works department has a CIP program. They're about to enter into their CIP development. There could be ways to reallocate funds there. So, from a financing perspective, We think we're definitely within the realm of reason, and that there will be ways to close the gap if council gives guidance to move forward.

[05:58:48] David Printy: So, if the council approves staff recommendations this evening, will be coming back in the spring of 2025, to bring the garage architectural and construction management, approval requests, this is a very complex and involved project, and so we will be putting out an RFP to get a construction management firm on board early to help with managing the final design process and verifying estimates and constructibility. In the summer of 2025, we would also come to the visual arts committee for the public art elements, and the Urban Forestry Board to address the heritage free mitigation plans. And in the fall, we would return to council with the sequent clearance proposal, and as well as public art and heritage heritage recommendations. And then, in early 2026, we would hopefully complete design and request counsel's approval to put it out for a bit. And so with that, um, staff is ready to accept any questions.

[06:00:05] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Hicks.

[06:00:12] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I have a question. I think I should know the answer, but I don't. Um, it's on, I guess the slides are not, uh, numbered, but there's one called Previous Council, two called Previous Council Direction, and one says it's gonna, the first one says it's gonna be a 68, um, 68,000 square foot public safety building. That was in June of 2023. And December of 2023, it's grown to 75,000 square feet. Can you remind me? I was there for both of these, so I should now. Now, Why did it grow over that time?

[06:00:53] David Printy: Certainly, David Printy, Public Works. At the June 2023 meeting, there was a robust council discussion on the concept of making sure that this project met the long term needs, the public safety needs of the city, and that several members of the council expressed concerns that, if we built it too small, that we would find ourselves in an enviable position of having to expand or have another phase down the road. So the direction was to, again, verify the long term needs and see if there were additions that were required. There's also a request, I think, a side request to bring the auditorium to a slightly larger size than we have now. I think we added 1,000 square feet to the auditorium for public use. So that was one other element. So it was a 7,000 square feet, 1,000 of which was for the auditorium.

[06:01:55] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you. And then my second question is, um, how well, so it's not quite, but I'm not going to do the exact numbers, uh, figure the exact numbers, but it's almost double what it is presently. So if it's finished in, I don't know, a couple years, five years, whenever it's done. What, we won't be able to fill the whole thing right away. So what is, we're not gonna double our police and fire in five years. What's going to happen with the space? How will it be used in the interim? What are the thoughts on that?

[06:02:33] David Printy: Thank you for the question. I think one in designing the building, and one thing we worked through during our schematic design phase, and I failed to mention, after council approval of the Civic Americana, we proceeded with schematic design of the building itself, which is one of the reasons we're not recommending changes, because that would require more time and costs to revise. However, to your question, you know, a lot of what will define the capacity of the facility is largely the office spaces and the locker rooms and amenities that serve the staff. So, yes, it's reasonable to assume that there will be some unutilized spaces, but they are generally highly specialized spaces, like the locker rooms and the showers, can't be turned into offices and other areas of the building. We would just use different furniture systems. It might be a little more generous at first, but we have the capacity, and we've already worked with police and fire, that they will accept different configurations. It may not be so generous in the future. So that's how we increase the capacity of the building in the future by, kind of, tightening our belt, if you will, on the furniture side.

[06:03:49] Edgar Rangel: If I can add, Edorango, Assistant Public Works director, largely, we know that the existing building is undersized. So there isn't enough sufficient space to accommodate them. So the larger building automatically provides additional space. In addition, we're currently leasing, as council is aware, the 888 Villa site for fire staff. And there's roughly 10 to 12 staff that are there. So they're also gonna be moving into that space. So while they're, you know, principal project manager printing properly identified that, um, the, I said, the cubicles and the spaces may be a little bit more generous at the beginning, it really does allow for flexibility in the future to accommodate the growth that we're going to need by reducing office spaces and reconfiguring that we don't have available today.

[06:04:40] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you. Yeah, that's I'm wondering in part about near term flexibility, but I can say other things during comments, because you've answered my questions.

[06:04:50] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: And council member Hicks, I'll also add that through the mayor, that we've also learned from how this building is now, and this is built in the 90s, and it is not big enough for our needs now, you know, 20 some years later, we're bursting at the seams. As mentioned, we have to rent space downtown because we don't have enough space here at city hall for our staff. And we're, we've literally turned closets into uh, offices for people. Similar situation out at our municipal operations center, bursting at the seams there. And not that long of a time frame. So I think where we tried to be mindful about this building, knowing that there were other staff that were going to be moving to that building, and it was going to house more administrative staff and staff that had always been here at City Hall to be moved to that building, and frankly, where they should be with their colleagues. So I think that that's also just something that we're keeping in mind with this building, not just this one, but I would say in future, whatever city facility projects there may be in the future, just being mindful of the space needs and growth that we'll have within the next, you know, decade or 2 beyond. So thank you.

[06:06:13] Councilmember Alison Hicks: You are kind of, that's some of the detail and some of the, that I was needing or wanting and that, um, maybe in my comments, I'll add a little more. I'm just hoping, I asked this question and written for him as well, and if I remember the answer, right, I did read it kind of quickly. Um, it said that the space was going to be inflexible and secured, so that we couldn't, um, move additional people over, but I'm hoping that that it means, at least there are administrative areas that maybe can house some other staff. I'm bleeding into comments now, but, um, but, yeah, that it won't all be inflexible with, with very large officer cubicle spaces that when we may need to accommodate other people.

[06:07:04] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Ramos.

[06:07:11] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you. Who is there?

[06:07:15] Mayor Pat Showalter: Go ahead, counselor.

[06:07:17] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Um, uh, thank you for some of the pre-rich in questions. It did touch on my initial question is of like, what if we wanted to? Look at different. I had a lot of questions from the public about why, why can't we just cut this and then why can't we just cut that? Um, so thank you for that stack question. I guess one of the questions is, um, you have an estimate of the cost if this decision is delayed.

[06:07:51] David Printy: David Printy public works? Yeah, uh, approximately with a 2000000 in-ish project, you're looking at minimum of 5% per year escalation of costs, um, which would result in uh, at least $1000000 a year. So, half 6 months delay is $5 million. on that scale.

[06:08:15] Edgar Rangel: Again, Edarango, again, assistant book works, director, if I can clarify, you're identifying if the entire project was delayed, not components of it.

[06:08:24] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I guess both questions.

[06:08:27] Edgar Rangel: So, um, principal project means are printing identified, you know, total project delays. The longer we delay the project, the more costly it becomes. We've seen this cost escalation, more severely over the last few years, but we've experienced it. Again, year over year. As phases of the project are delayed. Those will also cost escalation. Our intent is to construct as much as the project as possible in the near term, to avoid these longer term cost escalations in the future.

[06:08:58] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Okay. And then the other question, um, that I had is at what point would we, in the process, be able to see a full breakdown of the cost relating to the public safety building?

[06:09:15] David Printy: In terms of, well, we can get fairly detailed. We do have preliminary estimates on the project for, you know, all the different building systems. This project, these numbers we're sharing with you are complete project costs. They're not just the construction. They're design, construction, permitting, you know, move management, contingencies. So it's these are complete numbers. And so, um, I guess the next step, um, we don't have tonight, we don't have the detailed cost breakdown of all the components of the project. We have sort of phases in response to the questions that we provided or the responses to the council questions we provided. We can follow up at sort of the next milestone check-in with council and identify, if that's something the council wants to see, we can bring back the cost of the project components again. So that way it's another check in point with council on how we're doing with cost estimates.

[06:10:17] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you for that. And the final one is relating to the public art. Is it possible for us to require for the public art to be, um, publicly accessible, not just inside the building kind of issue. I don't know if that's what council wants to do, but I don't know if we have that kind of discretion.

[06:10:41] David Printy: I can say, David Printy, but it works. I can say from past experience that the our primary approach has been work with the VAC, and they are very much in the past, have sought to put projects, the art in places that are most visible to the public. And so that is our goal. We've even had a project, I think, where they decided to hold the money to move it somewhere else because it was not in an accessible area. There was no accessible areas at all. There are plenty opportunities here, in this project, in the public plazas, in exterior areas of the building, in the lobby. So, we believe this project has many opportunities to share art with the public.

[06:11:22] Edgar Rangel: And if I can add, that's absolutely counsel's discretion on, you know, public heart. as we approach projects like this with a component, we help guide the and through the work through the visual arts committee, identify effectively locations where art can go. And in those locations, it's going to be several locations that are an opportunity, it may be more than one, along the villa frontage, at the corner of Villa and Franklin, where the main front door to the public safety building is. And then along Franklin, where the plaza is next to the public parking area. Those are all locations that are very public, that we'd identify possible locations for artists to provide proposals to, to identify our pieces.

[06:12:14] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you. all my questions.

[06:12:17] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Abbe Koka.

[06:12:19] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. I just have one quick question. It might be for Captain McGee, but there's a shooting range in Santa Clara that I've been to indoors. Can you tell me if you know how many lanes that has? Is that close to the what we're proposing here?

[06:12:38] Mayor Pat Showalter: Our Captain, um, McGee's, can answer that question.

[06:12:42] Captain McKee: Where's the switch? Oh, it's on. Captain McKee, Mound VPD. So to answer a question, it's roughly about 10 lanes, and that's just an estimate, but from training their multiple times, I would say it's about 10 lanes.

[06:12:53] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Thank you. That was it.

[06:12:55] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, I have two questions. One is, how big is the future city uses area, and when are we going to start talking about how we're going to use that?

[06:13:09] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So, mayor, I can take that question. I'll ask staff to provide the size of it, but as far as when we're going to start discussing it. It's my recollection that, uh, in one of the prior medians that council discussed this. It was, uh, just put off that we would likely potentially need it in the future perhaps for a city building, um, perhaps for another use. And so, um, there was no determination on when to bring it back other than, um, I don't think that council at that point gave direction to, uh, discuss that parcel, um, in any time soon. Okay. Do you have the dimensions?

[06:13:53] Unknown Speaker: Not the dimensions, but the overall size is 0.6 acres.

[06:13:56] Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh thank you. That's even better. Okay. And then the other question I have. I think this is probably for you, Arn, is in your lists of possible sources of funding, you mentioned, you know, we have overages that from time to time, hopefully more than more often than not. And the possibility of using reserve money, but you didn't mention grants. And I was wondering why you didn't mention them. Are there grants that could conceivably be used for this, and, um...

[06:14:33] Arn Andrews: So the short answer is, there probably are. And so, the city currently has both a state lobbyist and now a federal lobbyist who have actually been helping us focus on a lot of grand opportunities. My previous experience, with, I don't know if I would call it grant money, but when I was part of the West Valley cities in Los Gatos, we cobbled together a joint emergency preparedness, wildlife request at the state, and we were able to get quite a few million dollars, and within that package, Campbell got money for their new public safety building for emergency operations. And so, there's probably a lot of avenues that we can pursue, once we're at a stage where we're ready to do TI improvements and things of that nature.

[06:15:20] Mayor Pat Showalter: You wouldn't think it would be valuable for making up this... gap.

[06:15:29] Arn Andrews: It's possible. I don't have experience with getting grant funding for a capital project, per se, most of my experience has been with either doing some form of bonding or paygo, but it's not to say it can't be available, and we'll discuss with either the state representative or federal representative, if they're aware of any opportunities like that.

[06:15:50] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, I think there may very well be opportunities in the IRA. Of course, we don't know what's gonna happen with that in the next administration, but based on my exposure to those programs, I think they're probably some good grand opportunities, and we, of course, would want to have ourselves of them.

[06:16:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, that's... All right, so that brings us to the end of our council questions. So now we have public comment. I see three people in the on the list in the chamber, Alex Brown, Jay Levy and Jim Zayorsky. So, if you would come up in that order, please. And if you just kind of get ready to, it's getting late, we all want to move on with this. So if you could just come up and be ready, I appreciate that. Welcome, Mr. Brown.

[06:16:39] Alex Brown: Hi. Ah, I feel like I've seen this project so many times. Uh... All right, so I was just gonna have a quick thing where I say, as a taxpayer is paying for it, I want to get to play in the puppy playground that you're building, and also use the gun range, to practice marks and separate instances, but... I think it would be fun. Anyway, uh, but I want to relate this to a lot of other projects we've had, like, housing projects and things where, oftentimes, it is a matter of, do we want to build, like, at a scale that makes the most use of the land that makes the most use of the construction that we're doing now, like, which is something that, you know, it only comes across. You only redevelop a parcel every once in a while. You only rebuild periodically. You should make the most of it. Don't want to under resource, 'cause it's hard. You can't add on. You can't add a story to a building, you can't really add, you can annex... It is not easy. So I don't like the idea of just always trying to cut down to the bare minimum that we could, like, feasibly do. I think that having room to grow, having room to expand, like making the most of things. is right for housing is also right for any kind of functional city development. We have the ability to do it. Do it right, go big. I've advocated this for all the precise plans. Go bigger. Just do it. It's more fun that way. Anyway, thanks.

[06:18:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Next speaker.

[06:18:10] Jay Levy: I'm Jay Levy. Hi, Judy Levy, Mountain View. A resident, and, uh, first of all, I just appreciate the depth and the thought that folks who have about the new public safety building, the seismic concerns, et cetera. I wish my phone would work here, has all my notes. Um, I'm concerned about the $30 million shortfall. I'm concerned that trying to make up the areas. Yes, grants might work, and yet we still have overages. Where would that come from? In November, we voted for on measure G, with the expectation that there would be allocated funds for these very important areas around housing and parks and trails and canopy, et cetera. The biggest concern I have is, we need to be able to safeguard those funds as well. My request of you, my ask of you, is, like, let's give the public some time to think about, okay, if it's gonna be revised in this matter, manner, Let's give the public some time to think it through. This is the holiday season. People are distracted, and give us a couple months to really work with this. We worked hard to make sure that we could have those funds allocated in the way that it's important to the public. So that's my request to you, thank you.

[06:19:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Mr. Ziorski. Welcome.

[06:19:41] Jim Ziorski: Thank you. I, as a person who was very much involved with Measure G, have two sets of problems with the proposal being here today. Number one, we see currently a 30 million bottle budget shortfall, which we were told in September, wasn't going to be there. We were told that the money's from measure G, plus the aims will amount was going to pay for the building. Now, it may be that we misunderstood what we were going to do, but we were told that the building was going to be re engineered, and sized engineering correctly, to make sure that we had money. We were very lucky in the park sports, which I'm very much involved in, in that we have a offset from parks. But there are people who do things like canopy, they do things like downtown improvement. They work with the housing element. They work with the ability to do underpasses that are scared shitless, that the money that's gonna be made to do the police station is gonna come out of these important housing element, important transportation, and important other plans. And it's not $30 million. It's really $50 million, because nobody said we're not gonna finish the shooting range. They just said, we're gonna finish it later, and we don't know how we're gonna pay for that, either. So, if we don't know where $50 million is coming from, and we don't have $50 million for parks or for housing or for anything else, I say we take a step back, we got three minutes until Cinderella turns back into a pumpkin, and let listen to the community. The Mountain View Woodsman School District did not listen to the community about fencing. They had meetings at midnight, and they limited public talk about it. Joe Samidian was here. Joseph Midian did not get where he did by not listening to the community. Joe Samidian, listen to what people thought were important. It may be that the things that we thought we could afford in June, we can't afford anymore. We maybe can't afford 40 to 50 years, and maybe that's not bad. Because who knew 20 years ago that DNA, drones, and things like the internet, and mental healthcare, were gonna be such a big part of policing, and they don't take up that much space? Who are we to know how much space we're gonna need in 50 years? And why are we building a building that's gonna last 50 years at the expense of things like housing, transportation, and parks? So I'd ask council to step back, listen to the community, and make the decision strategically based on your own personal needs. I'm not gonna tell you how to what decision to make, but make a decision based on the considerations of what's important to this city. If the city can find $50 million for a building and can't find $50 million for housing, I can guarantee you there's gonna be a lot of people upset. So, do your best you can, but do not make that decision tonight, because you'll be making a big mistake, similar to what the Mount Viewiston School District did with fencing, and the people still hate them for it four years later. Thank you.

[06:22:42] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so that's everyone in the chamber who wanted to speak? I don't see anyone else coming forward. So we have two speakers on two virtual speakers. The first will be Bruce England, and the second will be April Webster. Bruce, go ahead.

[06:22:58] Bruce England: Thank you, Mayor. Bruce England Wisman Station Drive. Oh, picking up where Jim left off. I agree with his idea of stepping back and making sure that we don't rush us unnecessarily. But my comments are going to assume that the city does actually need the new building and facilities, such as for seismic safety, and to provide appropriate space for public safety work. And then having public safety manage primarily in the one location might help staff and others to operate in a more cohesive and coordinated way than they can currently. However, as I've said earlier, I question that this project should go in a location that is primed for transit oriented development in 15 minute city access, that is, to downtown in other areas of that vicinity. I note that the municipal operations center is located on Wisman Road, and as far as I know, functions fine from a location not so centrally cited. I would have liked to see this consideration addressed earlier, of course. But if the project will go forward as described, Please consider the following 5 points. One, keeping the interior design and service provisions as flexible as possible in order to readily make changes as city needs evolve, given that not all of those can be envisioned or anticipated today. Two, developing the shooting range with only the shell in place seems like a precursor for providing the range in its entirety. So I encourage council to see it this way. Obviously, there's a risk that completing the firing range will only increase in cost of delayed with those costs potentially drawing from the general budget and or the CIP, which, as you know, already have other high priority and essential needs, well queued up for funding, even with measure G's passage. Three. Public guard might be suitable on this side to some extent, acknowledging the historically significant nature of this location. But the details matter, and we won't be able to know much about this part until the VAC weighs in. I do hope that they will consider prioritizing areas with the most public exposure. I'd hope that the public safety building would be located further back in the location with potential other future cities, such as housing moved to the front. Lacking the site design, suitable public art of the front can help to soften impacts on the transition between municipal and residential properties on the north side of Villa, as well as facing Franklin and Oak streets. Four. Not knowing that the Evelyn Ramp, the shoreline will happen at some future date. Perhaps no consideration can be given at this point using the space under the ramp, such as for parking. Nonetheless, you might want to include this point in your deliberations. And lastly, and as always, I urge you to do what you can to protect trees at the location. Thank you.

[06:25:25] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Next is April Webster. April.

[06:25:33] April Webster: Thank you, Mayor Schalter. Um, I would like to echo what Jane, Jim, and Bruce had to say, and, um, I'd like to say, well, I recognize the urgent need to replace the outdated and seismically unsafe public safety building, the inclusion of a rooftop shooting range, raises questions about whether the project aligns with Mountain View's priorities of sustainability, equity, and financial or fiscal responsibility. This facility cannons should be built in a more balanced, cost effective way that reflects our values. The current scope, with the total cost of 189 million, as others have pointed out, exceeds our funding by about 30 million, even with revisions like the scaled back parking structure and cold shell shooting range. This project risks diverting resources from critical priorities like active transportation, affordable housing, urban forests, et cetera. These are all investments that enhance safety, climate resiliency, and quality of life for all. As Mayor Schwalter stated in the city's annual update, Mountain View must strive to be a community for all. Both Mayor Schwalter and the city manager, McCarthy, also acknowledge it that we have a lot to accomplish with a limited budget. So committing an unnecessary and disproportionate share of funds to this project doesn't really align with those priorities. Instead, investments and infrastructure, like green complete streets, affordable housing, expanded urban tree canopies would better serve our residents by addressing immediate safety concerns and fostering long term resilience. Moreover, the proposed revisions raise concerns about cost shifting, rather than actual reductions, um, features like the cold shell, um, defer expenses, but don't eliminate them, eat risking even higher costs in long term, and without clear projections. I'm demonstrating meaningful savings. This approach will probably strain the city's budget and divert attention from other essential initiatives. So I urge the council to consider these actions. Streamline the project's scope, ensure cost transparency, provide detailed projections to demonstrate the true savings, and explore alternative funding like grants or partnerships. Finally, I'm concerned about the transparency and timing of this discussion, scheduling it so late during the holidays and placing it late on the agenda really limits community input, you have to be dedicated to stay here this long. And also a project of this magnitude deserves a broader engagement and a much more inclusive process. So, well, I think replacing the seismically unsafe safety building is essential. I don't think it should come at the expense of other critical community priorities. And by rethinking this proposal, the council can ensure that it aligns more closely with Mountain View's vision for sustainability, equity, and inclusive inclusivity, and delivering on its promise to create a community for all. Thank you so much.

[06:28:35] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. All right. So the 1st council person to comment will be Lucas Ramirez.

[06:28:43] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I wasn't planning to speak first, but I'm not as young as you all, and the physical pain is starting to get to me. So I'm gonna try and make some suggestions. I'll make a motion for this one. Um, I'm hoping somebody, uh, more clever than I am can figure out how to, uh, help uh, advance the project. I think all of us agree that this is an important project. And I would argue that it was an elevated component of the measure G campaign, and so the community is aware, that this was one of the many priorities that we're hoping to accomplish. But I think there are some interesting and helpful themes to reflect on from the public input. There was a request for some additional time for the public to consider and contemplate some of these actions. And I think it's helpful to take a look at the staff recommendations, which include, one, approve the revised project scope, which reduces the size of the parking garage and shooting range, and incorporates a phased approach for the shooting range, and to approve a public art budget decrease from $1 million to $500,000. So what I hope we can at least communicate from the outset is we're not approving an expenditure plan, we're not authorizing a contract. There's still a lot of work that the staff will have to do, and that will have to come back to council for direction and action. So I would consider the scope of this discussion, is reducing the scope of the project, is trying to find ways to, we don't have to accept the staff recommendations, we can provide other direction, but the staff recommendations are recognizing, I think, that we've got some financial restrictions, and we have a pretty ambitious project, and the market conditions are not favorable at the moment, and so we're going to have to make some hard decisions. And so I think that's something that we are prepared to do in providing direction to staff to come back with potentially some other creative funding sources or further scope reductions or other ideas to help deliver the project. So what I would like to suggest as a starting point is, I can't remember if Arn alluded to this, or if there was a council colleague, but one place to look is the internal service funds, which were never intended to be used for community priorities, like parks and open space. This may not surprise you all, but the fund I would suggest we look at is the equipment, maintenance, and replacement fund, which has $30 million in it. Funding that was that I think is important. We certainly have equipment and fleet maintenance and replacement needs. And I do appreciate that for the 1st time in quite some time, we actually have a plan to utilize a significant chunk of that money. We learned in the CFC meeting that we've got $12 million in capital outlay. But even if we spend all of that money, all 12 million. We've got 18000000 left in the bank, um, which is a lot of money considering the, uh, the, uh, the fund activity over the past 15 years, uh, which is generally very minimal. And so I think one, I know the staff are not maybe terribly happy with this, but I think among the directions we provide should be some instruction to explore utilizing an appropriate amount of that reserve, because that was never going to be used for parks and open space. It was never going to be used for housing or for any community priority. That's strictly internal. And it's valuable, it's important, and I think it's great that we have such a healthy reserve. But when the activity, over the past 15 years, it's pretty minimal, and we have pressing needs to deliver this important project. I think these are among the kinds of hard decisions that we might have to seriously consider. So I would encourage whoever makes the motion to include direction to explore, looking at internal service funds. The other one that is healthy and doesn't have tremendous activity is the liability self-insurance fund, which has 4.6 million, that one, again, with if staff takes a look and says, no, don't use that because that's important, then I'll defer to them. But I think this is where, if we're genuinely interested in delivering the project, you know, whatever one's perspective might be on the staff, sorry, on the public input, we still have a 20 plus $1000000 gap to figure out. And so these are sources of funding that I think we ought to include in the exploration of ways to make up that deficit or make up that gap, that we can say to the public with assurance, this was never going to be used for community priorities. We're thinking about using internal service funds to address an internal need that has great relevance to the community. The other thing I would suggest is just going with council policy K5, rather than enhancing that. That's the art fund, the art requirement. I like the idea. I really appreciate staff, suggesting that we, you know, we invest meaningfully and more heavily and public art. I just feel like when we have this deficit, It's harder to justify. So it's $100,000. It's not, um, gonna make the project work, but every little bit counts, um, and council policy key 5 dictates a maximum of $400,000. I think we should just go with the council policy. There's nothing that suggests strongly to me, that we need to go above and beyond the public art component, especially since we're having a hard time making the project work financially anyway. And then some other things to consider. This is where I would appreciate my colleagues' feedback and also staffs, providing general direction to continue exploring scope reductions, something that can make sure we ultimately, ultimately are able to deliver the project, where we're not sacrificing, you know, mission critical elements, but this is a good starting point, right? I don't think there is opposition from the public to reducing the scope of the garage, or, you know, to not proceed with the TI for the shooting range, right? I don't think we're hearing objection to that. I think there's support to do more, to explore additional reductions, I mean. So I would welcome staff's input for other scope reductions that can help, again, address that funding gap and ultimately deliver the project. And similar to that, there's scope reductions. There's scaling down the project itself, but there might also be construction cost reductions, and I'm thinking about, you know, I'm not that smart or clever, but I do pay attention in the council meetings. We learned from the Alta housing proposal for Lot 12 that if we, I think it was closed down a street for a period of time, that it would actually reduce the cost of that project by a few million dollars, right? Or with the Caltrain grade separations. This is a big ask of the community. But if you shut down the rail line for a weekend. The cost of the great separation project goes down tremendously. Those are big trade-offs. those have major impacts to the community. But those are the kinds of things we might want to explore if we want to help bridge that gap and, you know, not commit general fund or CIP funding for the project, but instead bring down the cost of construction. That's something that we can afford. So, again, I don't know if that's viable in this case, you might have a construction plan that doesn't, that is as efficient and effective as you could possibly make it, and there really aren't additional things to explore, but I think it would be helpful to include direction like that to see if there are construction, staging, construction, process elements that we could also, uh, that, you know, where it might be a little bit more challenging for other reasons. And, again, deferring to staff on what that might look like, shutting down roadway, or figuring out construction staging, that is more cost effective, but has different impacts. Those are all things that I think I would encourage, you know, the maker of the motion to include in the direction, um, that will address some of the public concerns, ultimately make the project and help us achieve, uh, or help us deliver this project. Thank you.

[06:37:34] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Next would be council member Abbe Koga.

[06:37:39] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, staff, for bringing this to us. I will say that I mean, this is my last meeting ever. I'll say ever for now. I have been as staff knows, I have been on this project since at least 2012, maybe even before that. So when I hear things like, oh, we're rushing a decision, I'm sorry, but I beg to differ because I've been working on this for at least 12 years or longer. And I will say that back in 2012 when we looked at this and we looked at various configurations, you know, I've heard seeing the comments, oh, why not go buy a corporate building and, you know, remodel it and whatnot. We looked at all of that, everything under the sun. I feel like we have looked at. And so we've done our due diligence at that time, it was $60 million. And that's really what this, to me, is the biggest challenge and concern. I, as you know, I see transportation projects, and we were so close to funding the, fully funding the ring store, a grade separation, by something like $300 million, and then we just got a new estimate that added another $100 million. And that's what I see everywhere with these construction projects is that the longer the weight, the more cost, it just, the costs continue to increase. I will say when we did Fire Station 5, back in 2012, the original plans had the police dorms there in the training room. And it was a 10000000 total $10 million project. And at that time, we had to cut costs and we took out the police storm piece and cut $4 million from that project. But if we tried to doing that to that. Now, I think we're in the $40000000 range. So that's really my concern. The longer we wait, the more expensive this is gonna get. And we've been talking about this for over a decade now. I know for staff, some staff, it's been 2 decades. So we have not rushed this. I mean, I appreciate Counselor Ramirez. I remember just recently, you know, during before the summer, I think it was. You spent a lot of time working with a community coming up with the expenditure plan for measure G. So this concerns of, oh, we're going to take money away from other, um, other projects or other areas. We've, you know, we made a commitment to the public. We have the percentages in there, so I don't see why what the concern is at this time. I would say that there are definitely ways to look at reducing costs. You know, we're doing it again with like Ringstorff and our other transportation projects and value engineering. So I would, you know, ask, I would expect staff will be looking at that. Phasing it is another way to at least, you know, phase the cost of it. But again, the longer we wait, the more expensive the pieces we don't do is are going to be. Um, I would support reducing the public art to $400,000. Um, and then I very much appreciate that we have worked hard over the years to be financially sound and, you know, we have, frankly, reserves on reserve funds. And that has, you know, served as well. And so I think there are opportunities. The other one that we have is the strategic property acquisition fund. I don't know how much we have in there, but I know we've put in money over time. So there are, I think, funds that we can look at. And I would say in terms of, you know, capital improvement projects. We have a long list of projects. We don't have, you know, full funding for all of them, but we just, we have to keep working at it and figure out how to finance them, and we've been able to do that. So I have full trust that we're going to be able to do that here too. There's other financing strategies. I won't go into them because uh, for in the interest of time, but uh, that we've, you know, we've uh, city finance this building at one point. So I'm not concerned. I know that we will be able to do this. And I actually appreciate those folks who said, you know, yeah, and I think we said that too. We need to look to the future. I think it was the current police building, admin building that by the time, I think I heard by the time it was built, it was already too small, and we've experienced that with other facilities. So I think it's actually very, you know, being mindful that we think about the future and what our future needs are. So, um, I am, you know, I am going to support this. I would just say, um, maybe rather than prescribing the funding sources because I, you know, I didn't really go through the budget to figure out what funds we could tap into. I would just recommend. We say, you know, direct staff to bring back a funding plan for the remainder, remaining $28.5 million. So the next time that, and I won't be here, but the next time this council sees it, they'll be able to see the full funding plan. Thanks. And if I can, I'll go ahead and make a motion, including the funding plan. Um, I'll, um, make a motion to move staff recommendation and add a funding plan when it returns to council. And we'll change the public art budget to $400,000 from $500.

[06:43:50] Mayor Pat Showalter: Cover everything? Okay. Thank you. Council member Hicks.

[06:43:56] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I actually liked the way that council member Ramirez stated it, come back with further scope reductions. I guess this isn't exactly what I was expecting. I thought we'd have a reduced scope that would be fully covered by the money from the Ameswell and the are agreed upon percent of measure G. You know, I support a new public safety building, and I voted for it every time, but I fear that at this point, this project will pull from other community, priorities, um, in order to complete it, and in particular, I'm thinking, you know, about what we talked about just earlier this evening, where the Prometheus project, the project in East Wisman, that the big thing that was lacking was a park. And at the same time, and we're experiencing that all over Mountain View because of the fencing off of many of our neighborhood parks, and the reduced parkland dedication fees, which are gonna be pretty drastic. So I'm, um... a little worried about saying that we're going... that there's a $28 million gap, and we're gonna find it, um, from general fund reserves, because I would hope that that would go... that would be things that we would start putting towards parks, um, or from the CIP. You know, I would hope that if we're coming through that, we could put it to active transportation. And I feel like, um, we're not leaning into those things, we're leaning into this instead, even as it goes over the percentages we agreed in, we agreed to earlier. So that's why, um, that's why I would prefer that an emotion we make, um, say that we come back with, for any further scope reductions. I liked, um, the suggestions that counsel and places to find the money that are not from things that we could dedicate to active transportation, street trees, parks, um, in addition to the things that have been, uh, mentioned so far. I think a flexible design. The idea that it would be that we'd have a lot more space, but people would just have larger offices until we hire more people when, you know, I would like to be able to move other staff, and other departments over. I would like that kind of flexibility, which is different than the answer I got when I asked that in writing. I would like, um, there's, there's sort of a decorative tower, which I don't think is that handsome, and maybe we don't need, there, uh, is also, um, the extra plot of land that I think that we could either ground lease to a developer or sell for a cash flow. So I think there are a number of things we could do to, for alternative funding. And I would be supporting the motion if it could incorporate more of those things. Um,

[06:47:18] Mayor Pat Showalter: Vice Mayor Metachek. Are you sure?

[06:47:25] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So, I agree with council member Abbe Koga. The longer we wait to move forward with this, the more it's gonna cost. And, um, I haven't been on council as long as she has, but yes, we've been talking about it since I've been on council. Um, and I kind of feel like if we don't do it now, it, you know, when would we ever do it? Um, I have confidence staff will take a look at different options for additional funding. Um, and I don't think this council or staff, um, is interested in taking money from other projects that are important, um, to fund this, but I think we will find, um, additional funding. There were some areas mentioned that we could look at. You know, I feel like we do this all the time. If you look at the CIP schedule, There's lots of projects on there that are not funded, and eventually we find the funding for it. and we move forward with them. And speaking of CIP list, I want to make sure, the interior of the shooting range, and wait, there's one other thing. No, the interior of the shooting range is on that CIP list for both the design as well as the construction, not just one, but the whole thing. And it will be on there, but it will probably be unfunded, at this point, until we have additional funding for that. We have several projects like that, Fire Station 3, right now, says there's no funding toward it, but we want to keep it on the list so that we don't lose sight of the project we want to do when we can. I, um... I'm open to... I wouldn't say they're necessarily scope reductions, but they're sort of approach reductions. So if you can do savings from construction, um, as we've talked about in, for other projects, I'm open to that, but I don't really want to reduce the scope of this project. And I am not interested in selling or leasing the remnant parcel. I think we're going to need it for city operations. And so, or a nice little park for now until we need it for city operations. So, I'm not interested in doing anything with that right now. So I'm happy to second the motion that council member Abbe Koga made, which is basically the staff recommendation, with a reduction in the public art, from $500,000 to $400,000. Thanks.

[06:50:17] Mayor Pat Showalter: I thought there was also something about, yeah, bringing back a funny plan. Okay, that's important. Um, Council member Ramos?

[06:50:27] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Most of my comments were very similar to council member Hicks. When council member Ramirez was point, what I appreciate from council member Ramirez's comments, is how he looked specifically at funding sources that didn't come from, um, things that, um, like our parks, that, that, that is largely the, the biggest concern that our residents uh, seem to be having with how are we going to fill this gap? And so as long as we are, um, we, we are, uh, very clear that we're not taking money from, um, our affordable housing funding or our, uh, and, and even if you talked about like taking it from the general fund, that, that still provides some worry to people. So I do like the approach that council member Ramirez. was talking about. I actually thought he was just going to go all the way. There was some movie a long time ago where like the main character found all the funds they needed to make their gap. And I actually thought you were going to do it. But I have I always have high expectations of you. Um So I do love that approach. I agree with the approach of finding the cost savings through construction. Um, I think that that's very good. I also agree with the, um, uh, scaling down public art down to the the canine K5 policy. And I think we will probably discuss the interior shooting range when CIP does come up, but I do know that a lot of people are concerned that it will displace the priorities of active transportation projects, but I think that's not the fight tonight. That, that maybe, that's gonna be a fight. And hopefully we have less more daylight. So thank you, staff, for your work on this. I'm hoping you could find more ways to cut costs in this so that our community feels a little bit more secure that their funding priorities. are met.

[06:52:46] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Kamet.

[06:52:50] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thanks, Mayor. So I just had a quick question to the motion maker and the seconder. I believe that there had been some discussion too about further looking at the scope for potential reductions. Is that included, or can that be included in the motion as well? That's actually why I had my

[06:53:07] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh, okay. But I was gonna include value engineering, but I'm not really interested in making the project smaller. I think it's that.

[06:53:19] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Sorry, if there's any cost, additional cost savings.

[06:53:21] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, and I think they're called, yes, I, based on how you constructed, and, right, the staging, where you, like, we saw with the Alta housing project, and we're seeing with, like, Rent the Ring Store projects. So there's definitely ways to cut down on costs, but I'm not interested in cutting the parking space. I don't, yeah, the parking spaces or anything like that or even the space of the actual interior because I think in time we're going to need that and whether it's an emergency operation center or something, we're going to need that. So, yes, definitely looking for cost savings, but

[06:53:59] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: perfect. Sorry, that's what I meant. The late hours getting to me. I just wanted to make sure that that was included. So, um, in the motion. So, therefore, I'll be able to support, I think tonight, um, to me, it's, this has all been an iterative process, and to me, this is the next step, and I, and we talked about measure G at that September meeting, should it pass, that this would come back before the end of the year. So in a way, I feel like, uh, we're doing exactly what we had said that we are going to do tonight. And, um, it's just one step and looking to staff. I know that this is going to be coming back as well. So I do think there's more touch points, and it's incumbent on us to share that with our community, that there's going to be further discussion, and we value their community input, and really appreciate kind of the flushing out of how we move forward, how we can provide those cost savings, while also being supportive of our public safety, and this long journey we've been on to get the building build. So I'll be supporting the motion with these changes. Thank you.

[06:55:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, I'm going to take a turn and then some other people. I generally, um, feel like when we set that resolution in September with the percentages for measure G, we made it clear that this is amount of money we were expected to spend on this, um, you know, on this project. And, and the sad truth is that these projects all go up in cost. And so, you know, this escalation is unfortunate. But I don't find it surprising. I do think that in the next few years, we may be seeing some leveling off of the escalation and cost because of the reduction in development that's going on. But we can't, you know, we can't be sure of that. But we can be sure that we do need this new facility. And I think it's best to get on with it. I would, however, really, there's two financial issues I would prefer were included. One is, we're going to look for grants as well. That would be part of the financing plan. And then the other one is that we would avoid using the general operating fund as much as possible. I really think that, um, Those are two, those are two components that I really think are important, is, is funding this outside of our, you know, our general operating fund, which is really typically devoted to primarily your staff, and that sort of thing. But those are my comments, and I appreciate the other thing I have to say is, I appreciate the honesty of staff bringing this back, frankly. I mean, I know, you know, when you go over an engineering estimate, and you find out it's gone up, you're not happy about that. But the truth is, it's gone up, and it's better to get that out, and tell us about it, and discuss it, and be transparent than, you know, to wait another six months. So, um, I can't say I'm happy, you know, with that, that's the cost went up, but, but, but I do appreciate you coming back with that information. Council member Hicks, I think, is next.

[06:57:47] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, just, I'm left a little unclear about the flexibility of the use of the space, because I've gotten different answers at different times, will, um, different staff... In our, um, the answers to our council questions, is said that no other kind of staff could move in for security reasons, I think, if I remember it right. And I'm just wondering, I'm hoping to forestall more remodels and more building in the interim by being able to use the extra square footage here. Is that something that can happen, or that cannot happen?

[06:58:23] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So, to clarify, there are staff that had been in City Hall, there were in the fire department, our environmental engineering division, who moved to the space we are leasing off of Villa, who would move into this building. So currently they're, like I was mentioning, they're away from their colleagues, they would move into that building. They're non-sworn. Um, so they are more administrative or technical staff that would move into the building. It's not to say that there might not be other staff that have a nexus to public safety that might also, in the future, move into the building. Do I see, you know, staff that might be in community services or CDD in our community development department moving there? No, I do not. But I wouldn't close the door on the possibility if there are certain areas that are not required to be secure where only sworn staff could be in. There are a number of staff in the police department and certainly the fire department administrative staff that will be in that building. Um, and so I couldn't, with a definitive answer, tell you now which staff are going there, but I do know that we are building so that there is room. So it's very possible that there might be other staff there in different areas of the building. But I can answer that now. You had mentioned possibly technical support or IT. Correct. That's what I meant. Yes. So that I would imagine the IT staff might grow in the police department. They are getting, I believe, in this current fiscal year budget. There was a new position added for IT. I know that the chief and I have had numerous conversations about their need as technology and the systems they're using are getting more complex and cybersecurity and there are just much more concerns around the systems. So I see that growing. their need for technical staff. So that is certain, I would imagine, in the future, to where they'd have more staff in that regard. So I think there are definitely a lot of ways that more staff would be in that building. I just couldn't tell you the job classifications now, but I think it's smart what we're doing now, especially as I mentioned earlier. based on our experience now at City Hall. You know, had we had, you know, hindsight's 2020, there's this building's beautiful, but there's a lot of wasted space in it that we could use for staff. And now we have so many staff that have no where to go and we're kind of cobbling people around in all these different places. So, I think that this building represents an opportunity for us in the future. And it does depend on whether it's a secured area or not. But I think we have options.

[07:01:28] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, so I guess what I'm asking for is flexibility for more unsecured area, you know, some way to portion that off so that we're not continually building new public buildings and have some that are not full.

[07:01:44] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: I think the staff will design it the best way they can. I wouldn't want to give certainty now that we would never need to build another public building. No, but absolutely. You know, to the extent we can. I think that's something that we would definitely be open to. and hopeful about doing.

[07:02:04] Mayor Pat Showalter: Before we bring it to a vote, I think that, um, council member Abbe Koga has a few more things to say.

[07:02:09] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Sorry. I just wanted to respond to the concerns about the funding. Number one, taking funding away from other priorities. The challenges, frankly, is with these capital projects, is it's the one area where there are very few other options for funding. Affordable housing. You know, we didn't get to do Bafa this year, but, you know, we're already talking about something in 2026. You probably have heard regional transportation. measure. We're licking it in Santa Clara County, doing our own. So with these other priorities, there are other sources. But when it comes to our own capital projects. That's the one area where there are very few resources. I appreciate the, um, you know, comments about looking for grants, and I think we should, but my understanding from just over the years is usually those grants go to the the communities in need, and I don't think we qualify quite often. So that's gonna be a challenge, I think, in the area of resiliency, there might be opportunities. So the emergency center, operations center might be an option, but capital projects really are, you know, we have to figure out how to pay for them ourselves. And when the talk about not using general operating fund, if I remember correctly, our capital improvement projects, usually, we fund them in through overages, with our budget surpluses. So once we have a surplus at the end of the fiscal year, we put that into the, you know, spar, to the capital improvement fund, to the equipment replacement fund. So we were essentially doing that. That's how we funded all of our projects. So to say, let's not touch general fund. I don't, you know, I mean, we're doing that, so I don't know why we would make that exception for this, this project. It's, you know, again, it's a necessity. And there just aren't a lot of opportunities outside of the city. So that's why I think this is really important to do now, to try to keep the cost down. And, you know, come up with as many sources of funding as we can. But we are. We're going to have to fund it ourselves, because there's just not a lot of help out there. So with that, I hope the motion is clear and I'm ready to vote. Thanks.

[07:04:47] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Ramirez.

[07:04:50] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor, really quickly. I don't like being the guy who says, actually, but actually, the equipment maintenance fund comes from charges to the departments, right? So each of the departments in the city have to set aside some funding to pay for, equipment, maintenance, and that kind of thing. So fortunately, it's not using general fund balance too. So it's, you know, someday I'll ask Derek to explain to me exactly how the charges are determined, but, um, so I did want to ask staff, though, um, based on the motion on the floor exactly what you would expect to come back to council with next year.

[07:05:34] Assistant City Manager Arn Andrews: So I'll go 1st based on this slide that kind of showed the sequence and next steps from the fight. team perspective. We will come back in the summer with the financing plan that's currently in the motion. That will be very detailed and show how we achieve what still occurs to be a scope somewhere in, let's say, the 189 million range. Just to put things in a little bit of context when we talk about the general fund. A $500,000 annual commitment on a $190 million budget would yield another $10 million in bond proceeds. So even a modest, uh, general fund contribution moves to bond proceeds from $135 million to $145 million. That being said, that's just one lever staff we'll look at, the finance director, myself, and our financial advisor. We're going to look at all the options that have been discussed tonight and cobble together what we think is the most reasonable, taking all these concerns and constituencies under consideration. You know, the comment was made, avoid general fund as much as possible. I mean, that's just in our DNA. I mean, I, and the financing team would do that just as a matter of, you know, business, making sure that we avoid that as much as possible, and we would look for any available OPM. You've heard me say that, other people's money, if there's grand opportunities, we will absolutely do that. And so our first deliverable is to come back in the summer with a financing plan. And then public works can speak to...

[07:07:11] Ed Arango: Uh, the city manager is correct. I use the term summer very broadly, because that would mean basically June and September.

[07:07:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So, yeah. So if I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it's essentially staff would prepare several options for the council to consider. We would show several ways to get to what is approximately still being discussed 189 million when we currently think what we already have identified is somewhere around 161 million.

[07:07:41] Ed Arango: Yes, we would show several options to get there. And that's finance and public works working together. So, well, city manager's office.

[07:07:51] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yeah, I was gonna, so coming out of tonight, public works is gonna look at value engineering and things like that, but those types of things will probably come a little later, as they on board, they taught me enough to be dangerous, but as they, on board, construction management...

[07:08:07] Ed Arango: I better step in here before he seats... Again, Edorango, assistant boat work director. We alluded to it in the report. But this value engineering, Really, it's construction logistics, cost savings. So we're gonna be coming back to council as part of, sort of, the next phase of the project, from the project side, to bring on a construction manager with the expertise on complexity of projects like this. And in order to do that, that really provides us the resources needed to identify how we can save costs through contrusting logistics. So they're much more well versed in this. We may have some ideas, but together, you know, really get there and identify additional cost savings through measures that we didn't think of before, that could be implemented on the project.

[07:08:59] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. That's helpful. So I think that what I appreciate is options for the council to consider and thorough analysis of different ways to deliver the projects. And then I don't know enough about the tower that council member Hicks reference, but if that's truly, you know, cosmetic, those are the kinds of things that the council may be interested in too. Thank you.

[07:09:27] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, I think we're clear on the motion, and it is time to vote. This passes with six, yes, and one abstention from council member Hicks. All right, now we go on to the next item. I think that's probably city attorney report. We have a closed session report.

[07:10:01] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: There is no co session report this evening.

[07:10:03] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Thank you. And then we have council and staff committee reports. I know the hour is late. Does anybody have any, but we are at the end of the year? Does anybody have anything they'd like to share? Um, just real quickly? I would like to, um, uh, I went to December 11th. I went to SVCE board meeting, and we went over the budget. December 12th, we had a neighborhoods committee meeting, and I'm proud to thank you. Council member Ramirez and Council member Ramos, for that, we had a handoff to the staff of housing is going to city manager's office. So I think that will be an interesting change. I hope it will be, I think, will be great. Then on Saturday, last Saturday, we had the opening, I got to open the German market, and I wanted to share about that with everybody, because this was sort of another cultural event, kind of on the order of magnitude of the Lunar New Year celebration, or the Day of the Dead. It was just a lovely thing. So, thank you so much to the German school who put it on, and they were so appreciative of the staff assistants that they had gotten with that. So we should really give great kudos to the staff that helps with that event. And then just yesterday, at the behest of, I mean, supervisor submittian, I took a tour of the alcove, which is a new facility in Palo Alto, a county facility that's designed to provide mental health assistance for teens and young adults. And it's supposed to be kind of a one stop shop, where kids can find a place to feel at home, and they can get some medical care, some mental health care, some help, perhaps, with how to find a job, or put together a resume. And apparently, these are based on an Australian model that has been successful, and we're going to have, I think we have, we're going to have five or six of them in the county. So I wanted to share with you that this is another part of our journey of providing better mental health services for our community. And with that, I'm going to stop and bring it to an end and thank everybody for a very, very productive meeting. And it's time to bring this meeting to adjournment. We are at a different day, then we started. Adjourning this meeting at on December 18th at 12:48.

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